pudding

Sticky toffee banana muffins with cheesecake frosting

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I see Bert’s inherited my thighs.

These are so delicious, I might have two.

As with sticky toffee pudding, the dates and dark sugar combine to create a dark toffee gooeyness. The icing is only just sweet, so it’s not sickly at all – New York cheesecake in icing form.

Makes 12 muffins

3 ripe bananas, mashed

175 muscavado (dark brown) sugar

175ml sunflower oil

100g chopped dates

175g brown self-raising flour

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

3 eggs, lightly beaten

For the frosting (to top half the cakes – double the quantities to top them all):

150g soft cheese

100g sieved golden icing sugar

Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 4/ 180 degrees. Gently stir all of the cake ingredients together until only just combined (this and the sunflower oil make them really light) then spoon the mixture into 12 muffin cases. Bake them for about 25 minutes. Allow to cool slightly in the tin then lift them onto a cooling rack to completely cool. I froze half the cakes at this point.

Beat the sugar and cheese together till combined then top the cooled cakes with it.

You can switch the banana for grated carrot and the chopped dates for raisins to make little carrot cakes.

Nearly Bird’s custard

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Mine and Bert’s relationship came as close as it’s ever come to crisis point when he refused to try this. It’s home made! It’s creamy and custardy! It’s a nursery classic! I was genuinely really annoyed.

But I’m over it now – at least enough to note down the recipe to force on him at a future date. It basically tastes just like a really, really nice version of packet custard.

Serves 3-4

2 cups of milk

1 teaspoon of vanilla essence

4 egg yolks

1 tablespoon of cornflour

1/2 cup of golden caster sugar

I’m friends with the mother of the girl Bert loves most in the world. Fearne treats him with a firm hand, shares his love of dinosaurs, is up for most things and has loaned him spotty socks. Maybe those are the secrets to a lasting relationship right there. Anyway, her mum suggested stewed apple and custard as a toddler friendly pudding and I thought, that sounds bloody lovely. And it was, even though the toddler in question wasn’t friendly about it in the slightest.

Whisk cornflour with the eggs in a foodmixer (or by hand) till thick, add the sugar and beat till thick and pale. Bring the milk and vanilla to a simmer then add to the egg mixture slowly, whisking all the time. Return it all to a clean pan and heat gently, constantly stirring, till thick. Eat the lot yourself if necessary.

Red and white jam tarts

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jam tart

Bert had half a cucumber and two jam tarts for dinner.

I obviously cut the cucumber up, rather than just hand it to him like a banana.

He could have had some home made fishcakes. But no. Just cucumber.

We met his friends Fearne and Hugo for a play in the playground this afternoon. He proudly showed Fearne his plastic dinosaurs and let her play with the ‘green ones’. If you know Bert’s obsession with green, then this is even more touching. He then wrestled her to the ground over possesion of a bouncy mushroom. And finished off with an air hug and a kiss on the lips.

The guy’s got style.

Makes 8 tarts

1 block of puff pastry

Flour for rolling

Strawberry jam

A punnet of mixed red and white currants

Roll the pastry out till it’s about 1-2 mm thick and cut out large circles with a big mug (or something of about that size). Line the compartments of a cupcake tin with the circles – not the ones with the little, shallow indentations, but proper deep ones. Drop a generous teaspoon of jam into each, and scatter over currants to cover the jam like little jewels, alternating white and red with each tart. Put in an oven at 180 for about 10-12 minutes, till puffed up and golden. (That’s near the bottom of the Aga roasting oven.)

The fresh currants look pretty and they give a sharper tang to balance the sweetness of the jam, so these feel more grown up than normal jam tarts. Saying that, I told Bert’s dad I’d made jam tarts and he ran over to them in great excitement, saw that they had fresh fruit on and wandered off saying he’d ‘save them for later’. Meanwhile, Bert ate two.

This would have been a good one to make with Bert if he showed any interest at all in cooking with me wasn’t sleeping off his adult portion of lunchtime meatballs.

 

 

Banana and blueberry cake

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Today we went on a steam train (exciting) and met Father Christmas (terrifying) but Bert danced his strange, limping jig all the way back to the car so I’m guessing it was all good.

Makes a 23 cm cake

2 eggs

4 oz golden caster sugar

4 oz soft butter

4 oz self raising flour

1/2 small punnet blueberries

1 banana

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

If you’ve got a food processor, just break the banana into big chunks and then bung it all in and beat till smooth. Otherwise, mash the bananas and do it the hard way. It goes into a greased tin (a little round one – about 23 cm) and into the oven at 180 for 25 minutes, or the grid shelf on the bottom of the Aga roasting oven.

We had ours with a yoghurt moustache. And seconds.

Apple fritters

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fritter

Oh balls, I’ve got nothing in for pudding except a bowl of apples and pears.

Made 8 fritters

130g plain flour

1.5 teaspoons baking powder (that’s one and a half, not fifteen)

1.5 tablespoons of golden caster sugar

1 egg

100ml whole milk

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1 average sized eating apple, cored and diced (I used two small ones)

Vegetable oil for frying

Beat everything except the oil together. It’s a thick batter, closer to cake mixture in consistency than pancake batter. Heat up about an inch of oil in a deep pan and drop spoonfuls of the batter in. When they’re puffed up and golden, turn them over in the pan. Get them out with a slotted spoon, pop onto some kitchen towel and dust with icing sugar. It’s a good idea to make them before you eat the main course so they’ve got time to cool and you’re not toiling over boiling fat while a todder practises acrobatics on a high chair unattended.

We had ours with maple syrup. Bert took a second one to eat on the sofa – not strictly allowed. At the moment he laughs with pure joy every time I tell him I love him – is there anything better in life than a toddler? Maybe a toddler and warm apple fritters.

Raspberry and white chocolate Eton Mess

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raspeton

A treaty Sunday pudding.

Serves 3-4

For the meringue:

2 egg whites

4oz golden caster sugar (the maths is easier with ounces)

For the Eton Mess:

200g raspberries

200ml double cream, whipped to soft peaks

50g white chocolate, smashed to splinters

Whisk the egg whites to soft peaks then gradually add the sugar till it’s thick and glossy. Spread out on a lined baking sheet and bake at a low temperature (I did mine in the Aga simmering oven – 140 for a normal oven) for 2-2.5 hours, so it’s cooked but still mallowy inside. Combine with everything else and serve. Bert alternated his with mouthfuls of corn on the cob but I can’t say I’d recommend that.

This gave Bert enough energy to empty the tins cupboard, stacking the contents neatly in the toilet, behind his tiny piano and in the fireplace. There may still be a tin or two of treacle in the utility room.

Plum, orange and ginger frozen yoghurt

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My plum and honey frozen yoghurt was not popular. This is my attempt to redeem myself.

4 ripe plums, skinned, de-stoned and pulped

Zest of one orange, finely grated

1 teaspoon finely grated ginger

80g golden caster sugar

120ml plain yoghurt

Chuck it all into the icecream maker and churn till frozen while your toddler throws miniature pianos over onto their sides and moves tiny wooden tables across the room like a 1/6 scale removal man. It takes about 45 minutes in ours.

Raspberry and coconut frozen yoghurt

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cocoyog

Served 3

200ml plain yoghurt

50ml double cream

60g golden caster sugar

20g dessicated coconut

200g raspberries

Blend the raspberries to a puree then put everything in an icecream maker till frozen while your toddler sits in the sink, filling beakers, teapots, buckets and small, plastic turtles and cooling their fat, little feet with cold water.

Almond and nectarine cake

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nec almond

Made a large cake that didn’t last very long

180g self raising flour

180g soft butter

180g golden caster sugar

100g ground almonds

3 eggs

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 nectarines, sliced

More butter to line the tin

Beat all the ingredients except the nectarine together till fluffy. While your toddler beats his father over the head with a plastic hammer, butter a loaf tin then layer the nectarines on the bottom and spread the batter over. Cook at 180 (or on the grid shelf on the bottom of the Aga roasting oven with the cool shelf two rungs above) for 30 minutes. We had ours warm with creme fraiche and a headache.

When Bert went to bed we had some more.

Berry and brown sugar frozen yoghurt

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froyog

Serves 2.5

200ml plain yoghurt

50ml double cream

80g brown sugar

About 100g of strawberries and about 20g of blueberries (though to be honest, I just used what I had)

Put the yoghurt, cream and brown sugar into an icecream maker. While it’s churning, blitz half the berries in a food processor and roughly chop the rest. Add the blitzed berries to the freezing yoghurt and then fold in the chopped ones at the end. Churn till icecream-like. So easy you could make a second batch after your toddler’s in bed.

This really only counts as an easy, toddler dinner time pudding if you have the relevant electronics. I wouldn’t bother if I didn’t. Bert’s looks liquid in the picture because he’d been playing ‘Simon Says’ (Bert says) for 20 minutes. ‘Simon’ really likes us to put our hands on our head, pull two strands of our hair in opposite directions and do a mafia shrug.