Croissant, Chocolate and Hazelnut Breakfast Pudding

My breakfast is usually pretty virtuous: porridge, muesli, granola, eggs, smoothies, toasted sourdough with avo.  But sometimes I like to push the boat out - a boat made of croissants and chocolate floating on a lake of cream.

Croissant, Chocolate and Hazelnut Breakfast Pudding
slightly adapted from here
Serves 8 - 10

4 large eggs
120g caster sugar
200ml thickened cream, plus extra to serve
600ml milk
Finely grated zest of one orange
1 vanilla bean, split lengthways and seeds scraped
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
6 large croissants, split in half
150g Nutella
300g fresh ricotta

Preheat the oven to 180C fan-forced.

Spread half of croissant halves with Nutella and the other half of the halves with ricotta.  Sandwich them so that you have Nutella and ricotta sandwiches.  Put the croissants in a baking dish in one, snug layer.  Set aside.

In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs, sugar, cream, milk, orange zest and vanilla seeds and extract together to combine.  Pour over the croissants and put the vanilla bean on top.  Bake for 25 - 30 minutes until slightly puffed and golden.

Serve with extra cream.