Raisin Banana Butterscotch Pudding

I've completely succumbed to all my winter comfort food cravings. I can't remember the last time I ate a cold meal. Mornings are full of oats and hot tea and evenings are full of soups, pasta and puddings. It's had a rather expansive effect on my waistline (as well as the many food blogger meet ups that have been happening lately!). I've decided to just embrace it for the moment, enjoy my pudding and suffer the consequences when the warmer weather starts to come around.

This pudding is one for the sweet tooths. I adapted it from a plain banana pudding, so feel free to leave out the raisins if you prefer. I love the raisins because they become so plump and moist at the bottom of the pudding, though they do add to the sweetness so I reduced the amount of sugar in the recipe. If I was feeling more food bloggery that night I would have poured the pudding into some ramekins to make it prettier, but I was feeling rather lazy and so it got bunged into one big pot.

Raising Banana Butterscotch Pudding
(adapted from this recipe from Lifestyle Food)

For the pudding:
125 g Plain Flour
a pinch of salt
100 g caster sugar
3 teaspoons Baking powder
1 Banana mashed
250 ml Milk
85 g unsalted Butter melted
1 Egg lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup raisins
optional: freshly grated nutmeg

For the sauce:
140 g soft brown sugar
1/4 cup golden syrup
250 ml boiling water

Preheat the oven to 180°C
Sift the flour, salt, sugar, baking and powder into a bowl.
Add the banana milk, butter, egg, nutmeg and vanilla extract and whisk together until well combined. Pour into a greased 2.5 L baking dish. Add the raisins and stir in.

To make the topping, place the brown sugar, golden syrup and water in a small pot and bring to a boil.

Pour the boiling mixture carefully over the pudding.

Bake for 30 - 40 minutes or until cooked through when tested with a skewer. Serve warm, with vanilla ice cream or freshly whipped cream. (Or on it's own. We ate it straight out of the baking dish and it was great!)

It's incredibly easy though it was rather frustrating cooking it in my bipolar oven which made it take a bit longer than the recommended baking time. It was worth the wait though, the top is golden and crunchy caramel while the bottom is gooey butterscotch sauce with juicy raisins that go wonderfully with the spongy banana innards