Bread and Butter Pudding with Poppy Seed - "Makos Guba"

One of my favorite sweets made in the "Hungarian way" with poppy seed. No you wont get an opium overdose with this, but it was often used as a meal at dinner time to put the kids to sleep quickly (that is if you use way too much poppy).

Based on the international bread and butter pudding, this is made with a similar way but using ground poppy seed, leftover semi dry bread and a very runny vanilla custard.

For this recipe I have used a 24x34cm ovenproof glass dish.

Slice up two french baguette (or leftover kipfel in Hungary).

In a pot measure 1 litre of full cream milk and start heating it up.

Separate 6 eggs, and put aside the whites and add about 180g fine white sugar to it with a pinch of salt, 1 lemon grind and 1 orange grind. The lemon and the orange grind are optional. Use an electric hand mixer and combine the sugar and the egg yolks. Add a tablespoon of butter. Meanwhile bring the milk to a boil (make sure it does not run out of the pot), and gradually add to the egg yolk mixture while stirring it.

Prepare the poppy seed (I buy this already grinded), use about 200g and add about 150g of icing sugar to it and a pinch of salt and mix it.

Butter the ovenproof glass tray, and dip each slice of bread into the vanilla mix and place them flat into the tray. Once one layer is done, sprinkle generously with the poppy sugar mix. continue till all the bread is used. At the end pour the leftover vanilla custard on the top of the breads, give it a gentle press by hand.

Beat the egg whites and pour it on the top of the bread. Use a fork to arrange it evenly.

Bake in a preheated 180c oven for about 20 minutes.

Serve warm with home made vanilla custard.

Vanilla Custard:

6 egg yolks

120g fine white sugar

pinch of salt

1 teaspoon Vanilla extract

500ml full cream milk

60g Corn flour (approx)

Made the same way as described above, but now you need to add the flour to the beaten egg yolks, and also add 1/4 of the milk before boiling. Once the milk boiled, add it to the egg mix and then put it back on the stove to gently (low heat) bring it to the boiling point till the desired thickness achieved. Fresh cream can be added to this once it cooled down to room temperature.