• More Easter entertaining ideas

In the unlikely event you have leftover hot cross buns in the house this Easter (certainly in my house they will all have been devoured in record time), this recipe could come in handy. It's an old-school celebration of the bun where simplicity belies its deliciousness. Best of all, it can be made up to a day ahead and baked to order – just ensure it comes to room temperature before baking.

You can substitute the dark chocolate for milk or white, depending on taste, and the apricot jam can be replaced with orange marmalade if you like.

Serve hot with a scoop of ice cream and enjoy.

Hot cross bun 'n' butter pudding

Serves 6 – 8

Ingredients

9 small hot cross buns

50g unsalted butter, softened

50g apricot jam

50g dark chocolate chips

170g castor sugar

4 whole eggs

5 egg yolks

100ml whole milk

600ml thick cream

1 vanilla pod

50g icing sugar

zest of half an orange

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees and lightly grease a deep two-litre baking dish with some of the butter.

2. Cut the buns in half. Spread the remaining butter on each half and then spread apricot jam on top of the butter. Put the buns back together.

3. Sprinkle the chocolate chips evenly into the base of the baking dish and then place the buns on top, cross up.

4. Place the sugar and eggs into a mixing bowl and whisk well together.

5. Place the milk, cream and scraped vanilla pod into a saucepan and bring to the boil over a medium heat, ensuring you keep an eye on the mixture as it can boil over.

6. Remove the liquid from the heat and pour onto the egg/sugar mix and mix well together. The resulting custard does not need to be cooked out, just strained through a sieve into a jug so it won't be thick.

8. Gently pour the custard mix over the buns and allow 25 minutes standing time to soak in before baking.

9. Place the baking dish into a large roasting tin and pour boiling water into the tin to come halfway up the dish. Place tin foil over the roasting tin and place into the preheated oven. Bake for 30 minutes and then remove the tin foil. Continue to bake for a further 20 minutes without the foil to crisp up the surface.

10. Remove the pudding from the oven and brush liberally with the remaining apricot jam.

11. Blitz the icing sugar and orange zest together and dust the pudding when serving. Serve hot with vanilla ice cream.