If you've got bananas that need eating up then I urge you to make this, it's so much better than banana bread, but it doesn't stick around for long. I made it with wholemeal sliced bread as that's what we have and the crusts needed using up, but you can use white bread, brioche or even croissants.
Banoffee Bread & Butter Pudding
6 wholemeal crust slices
50g butter
150ml Double cream
3 Eggs
150ml semi skimmed milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp cinnamon
100ml caramel sauce - I used home-made, however Carnation caramel or similar would work well
3 Bananas, sliced
2 tbsp Demerara sugar
- Butter the bread and then cut each slice into quarters
- Beat the cream with the eggs, milk, vanilla, 1 tsp of cinnamon & caramel sauce
- Butter a medium shallow baking dish
- Lay half of the bread sliced in the bottom
- Sprinkle 1/2 tsp of cinnamon over the bread
- Lay half of the banana slices over the bread
- Repeat with the remaining bread, cinnamon & banana
- Pour the liquid over the bread & banana and press down gently with the back of a fork
- Cover & leave for 30 minutes for the liquid to soak into the bread
- Sprinkle the demerara sugar over the top
- Bake in a preheated 160 C oven for 30-35 minutes, until puffed up and golden
Serve with extra sauce and ice cream
This is the second month that I have joined in with the Swallow's Recipe for Life challenge on Bangers & Mash, which you can read more about here.
I love recipe challenges & when I saw that the 3 ingredients this month were beetroot, carrot & cheese I immediately thought of a cake, strangely enough, and then salad. I had one carrot in the fridge but no beetroot so I nipped to the local shop on the way home from the school run and picked up a pack so I could try something out for dinner. I'll still make a cake but I need to go shopping first.
I picked up the tip of using bread soaked in milk in the meatballs from a chef that I watched cooking a few weeks ago, I've used dried breadcrumbs in meatballs before but never wet bread and it certainly makes the meatballs moister. The beetroot in the sauce produces a beautiful red colour and my daughter, who claims to not like beetroot, loved it (although I didn't mention the beetroot until after she'd eaten it!). The meatballs have carrot in so with that & the beetroot sauce your kids will be well on their way to their 5 a day without knowing it.
Baked Cheesy Meatballs with Beetroot Sauce - serves 4
Meatballs - makes 25-30
2 slices of wholemeal crust
300ml Milk
500g Lean Beef Mince
1 large carrot, finely grated
1 onion, grated
1 garlic clove, crushed
salt & pepper to season
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp dried mixed herbs
100g smoked Bavarian / Austrian cheese, cut into 1cm cubes
Sauce
200g cooked beetroot
2 x 400g cans of chopped tomatoes
1 garlic clove
1 onion, chopped
handful of fresh basil
- Tear the bread into small pieces & place in a bowl and cover with the milk
- Leave for 5-10 minutes until the bread has soaked up the milk
- Squeeze the excess milk from the bread and add the bread to a large bowl, discard the milk
- Add the mince, carrot, onion, garlic, salt & pepper, cayenne & herbs to the bowl
- Get your hands in the bowl and mix all the ingredients together
- Take a piece of the mince in your hands and firm into a ball, pressing a cube of cheese into the centre & moulding the mince around it - the meatballs should be approx 4cm in diameter
- Repeat until all the mince has been used up
- Blend the beetroot, tomatoes, garlic, onion & basil until smooth - if you prefer a chunkier texture you could mash or blend more lightly
- Arrange the meatballs in a large (pre-oiled) shallow baking dish and cover with the sauce
- Sprinkle over any remaining cubes of cheese
- Bake in a 200C oven for 1 hour, turning the meatballs over and covering with sauce twice during this time
- Serve with pasta
