Puddings…don’t you just LOVE them! I frequently try to convince myself when I’m in a restaurant that a pudding is not as important as that really tasty sounding starter, and that it really is doing me good by only having two courses instead of three. But I am my mothers’ daughter and invariably even if one eye is fixed on the startes, the other eye is roving gleefully over the pudding selection and secretly hoping I can squeeze one in.

Yes, puddings…simply awesome!  But being as I am quite conscious of trying to always eat a balanced and nutritious diet, I don’t always make a pudding for just the two of us.  But this recipe came to me recently, and I knew I had to make it!  Maybe it was the realisation that the Summer of 2014 is officially over (and how lovely it was), or the thought of lovely carribean flavours reminiscient of drinking pina colada’s and getting caught in the rain whilst in fact, trying to duck out of the rain and into a nice warm house with a roaring fire and a nice cake, warm suggary bananas and luxurious ice cream is all that you are presently concerned with!  I am most impressed with my no-churn coconut ice cream – I love it!  Eat it with this, or stick in an ice cream cone with a flake and some butterscotch syrup slathered over the top of it, or blend it into a smoothie with some lime juice and fresh mango.  Just lovely!

No-Churn Coconut Ice Cream

Ingredients:

• 200ml of coconut cream (not coconut milk – very important!)
• 100ml of double cream
• 397g tin of Carnation condensed milk
• Optional: freshly grated and toasted coconut

Method:

• Put the condensed milk, coconut cream and double cream into a bowl and whisk until thickened (about 10 mins).
• Pour into a 1ltr airtight container and place in the freezer overnight.
• If using the toasted coconut, serve this up with the ice cream with the cake and banana.

Caramelised Bananas

Ingredients and Method:

• Note: the bananas should be ripe, but not too soft.
• Use 1 banana per person, peeled and split lenthways
• Sprinkle the banana with brown demerara sugar on both sides.
• Melt a generous knob of butter in a frying pan.
• When the pan is hot, place the bananas in the pan and fry on each side until golden.
• Try to only turn the bananas once as they will begin to soften in the butter so the more you move them, the more likely they are to break.
• Serve up with the ice cream and cake whilst still warm.

Ginger Cake

Ingredients:

• 300g muscovado sugar
• 225g plain flour
• 225g self raising flour
• 1/2 tsp of bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tbsp of ground ginger
• 2 tbsp of ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp of ground nutmeg
• 250g softened butter (either take the butter out of the fridge a couple of hours before, or zap it in the microwave for 20 seconds to soften)
• 2 eggs
• 250ml buttermilk
• 175g of golden syrup / treacle of a bit of both

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 160 degs celsius
• Line a 23cm square cake tin with parchment paper
• Sift all of the dry ingredients into a large bowl, then add everything else.
• Beat on a low speed until combined, then on a higher speed until the mixture is smooth and a pale colour.
• Use a spatula to spoon out the mixture into the cake tin.
• Bake for 1 1/2 hours.  If it looks as though the cake is turning too dark a colour on top after an hour, cover it with a little more parchment paper.
• Take out of the oven, wait 10 minutes and then turn out onto a cake rack to cook.
• To serve the cake, cut into square chunks.

Serve a piece of the cake with your warm caramelised bananas and two generous scoops of your coconut ice cream and…Enjoy!