Two weeks into the new year and if feels like it must be time for dessert again. It is cold outside after all.

Bread puddings are a mainstay of my recipe back-catalogue, mainly thanks to a penchant for fresh bread which means having creative ways of using stale bread is a must. You’ll find both savoury & sweet puddings appear – if I finished up all my stale bread in desserts I’d be the size of a small house by now.

On this occasion a sweet recipe was called for though – there were still some Christmas chocolate gifts burning a hole in the snacks cupboard which needed to find a home. The resulting pudding was in fact not too sweet at all though – a happy accident of forgetting to add any sugar and the aforementioned Christmas chocolate being ‘dark with a hint of sea salt’. If you do have a sweeter tooth, just serve with a good vanilla ice cream or custard.

If you want to keep your healthy new year on track, this one would pack well cold as fuel for a long bike ride or crisp winter walk. The ginger should help warm up even the coldest of outings.

Read the recipe here or watch the highlights below.