Part of being an adult is collecting those Gü pots without having any idea what you’ll use them for.

After this week’s recipe for bunet you still won’t have a use for them, but at least you’ll get a chocolatey, boozy pudding worthy of any Gü.

Think of bunet as Italy’s answer to crème caramel - albeit with cacao, amaretti biscuits and booze. Got a sweet tooth? Prepare to have it well and truly delighted.

This week’s album: 
The Book of Traps and Lessons by Kae Tempest

Bunet is well-known in the region it comes from, Piemonte, but not so much everywhere else. More fool us.

Piemonte, a region in the north west of Italy, generally goes under the radar but it has a rich food culture with some incredible wines and dishes. In fact we’ve looked at a few before. See: bagna cauda, vin brûlé and Tajarin.

Bunet is made by mixing eggs, sugar, milk, amaretti and cacao together, and then by flavouring that mixture with alcohol (usually rum or Fernet-Branca). It’s then baked in a bain marie and left to set overnight before being served.

Although you can make bunet in individual portions, it’s often made in a loaf tin and then portioned into slices. In times gone by it was supposedly cooked in the baker’s oven once all the bread had been cooked and the ovens were cooling down.

The below serves 6-8. It takes 25 mins to prep and 45 mins to cook (plus overnight chilling).

Caramel:
150g caster sugar
50g water

Pudding:
4 whole eggs
1 egg yolk
150g caster sugar
35g cacao powder
1 pinch of sea salt
200g amaretti biscuits
2 tbsps of alcohol (rum, disaronno, marsala etc.)
500g whole milk

1. Preheat your oven to 170°c/150°c fan. Have your loaf tin or individual moulds ready.


2. For the caramel… Add the sugar and water to a saucepan, stir to combine, and place over a medium-high heat. Allow the mixture to come to the boil and lower the heat to medium. Leave to cook, swirling the pan carefully from time to time (note: don’t stir with a spoon/spatula), until your mixture darkens to a caramel colour. Once a caramel has formed, transfer it to your loaf tin or individual moulds. Set aside.


3. For the pudding… Add the whole eggs, egg yolk and sugar to a large mixing bowl (if you have a KitchenAid/stand mixer then use that). Whisk together until the mixture is light, airy and paler in colour.


4. Sieve in the cacao powder and a pinch of sea salt. Whisk again to combine. Now crumble in the amaretti and use a spatula to stir it through the egg mixture. Add the alcohol and mix again. Finally, while stirring, slowly add the milk.


5. Once fully combined, transfer the mixture to the loaf tin or individual moulds.


6. Lay a tea towel in a large tray that is big enough to hold the loaf tin or moulds. Lay the tin/moulds on top of the tea towel. Bring the tray close to the oven and then fill the tray with boiling water until it reaches an inch up the side of the tin/moulds.


7. Transfer to the oven and cook. 45-50 mins for a loaf tin, 30-35 mins for individual moulds. You want to retain a slight wobble in the centre and for a skewer to come out clean when inserted in the middle.


8. When cooked, carefully remove from the oven. Allow to cool for 15-20 mins before removing the tin/moulds from the water. Allow them to cool fully to room temp before transferring to the fridge for a minimum of 2 hours, but preferably overnight.


9. When ready to serve, remove from the fridge. Turn the individual moulds out onto a plate or, if you’ve made it in a loaf tin, turn out onto a board before slicing and serving.

In case you missed it, here’s the photo that reportedly broke the internet last week.

Speak next week,

Fraser