Photo by Ari Hatzis
I know it’s really cold in Europe and the US at Christmas, but it’s not always that warm here in Oz either. I remember my first Christmas ‘down under’ and it was freezing. I was working on Christmas Day and I remember looking out the kitchen door and seeing hailstones the size of golf balls. Wish I had a bowl of this on that day.
Christmas timeline:
To get on top of everything, you need to start this recipe by soaking the raisins in the rum. They’ll need to soak for a minimum of 4 hours before you can begin the other components of the recipe.
Rum + raisins
- 125 ml (4 fl oz/ 1/2 cup) dark rum or spiced rum
- 250 g (9 oz/2 cups) raisins
Banana + rum caramel sauce
- 150 g (5-1/2 oz/ 2/3 cup) caster (superfine) sugar
- reserved rum liquid (drained from raisins)
- 1 overripe banana, mashed with a fork
- pinch of salt
- 25 g (1 oz) unsalted butter
- 1 firm banana, cut into 24 thin slices
Directions:
- For the rum and raisins, heat the rum in a small saucepan until just below boiling point. Remove the pan from the heat and add the raisins. Cover with the lid and leave to cool and plump up at room temperature for a minimum of 4 hours. Drain the raisins, reserving the liquid for the caramel sauce. Chop the raisins and set aside.
- For the caramel sauce, place a non-stick frying pan over medium heat. When the pan is hot, add the sugar and cook, stirring with a wooden spoon, until the sugar turns to a caramel. Once you have a dark amber caramel, deglaze the pan by slowly adding the reserved rum from the raisins. Stir to combine before adding the mashed banana. Boil and whisk the sauce together, then add the salt and cook for 1 minute. Remove from the heat and whisk in the butter. Set aside.
- Lightly grease eight 200 ml (7 fl oz) ramekins. Alternatively, bake the puddings in a muffin tray or as one large pudding in a 1.5 litre (51 fl oz/6 cup) dish. Pour the caramel sauce evenly into the base of each ramekin, then arrange three pieces of banana over the caramel. Set the ramekins aside while you prepare the sponge
More from Chefs Host Christmas Too:
Recipes excerpted with permission from Chefs Host Christmas Tooby Darren Purchese, published by Hardie Grant September 2019, RRP $19.99 Hardcover.
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