First ever, quite well executed, I have to say. Greg Wallace’s recipe, that I have actually followed step by step, as I have never made it before, hoping for an honest opinion from Florek, who loves everything that’s toffee.

For 2 portions I chopped about 40g of dates and simmered them in a little water until nice and mushy. About 40g of butter, 25g of brown sugar, one egg, 80g self raising flour and a touch of baking powder all made a nice, thick mixture, plus the dates. It was all baked in a bain marie for about 35 minutes in 180 Celsius. Mine had a slightly crispy bottom- wrong, apparently, will cover them with foil next time. While they’re baking, I made a nice and simple toffee sauce. 150 ml double cream, 75 g of brown sugar, 25 g of butter went into it. I heated up half of the cream and all the butter and sugar, stirring often, let it bubble for about 5 minutes until glossy and thick, then added the remaining cream. Very nice sauce and bloody simple.

The taste of the  pud itself, I thought can be improved by a bit of cinnamon, maybe even a few chopped hazelnuts, to be done next time.

The photo does it justice today, does it not?

Presentation – wise, not as stunning as I was hoping it would be, but just had a look at other pictures on the net and it really is not too bad! And Florian just had the second helping. 😉

I baked the puff pastry in between two sheets of baking paper, with a heavy baking dish on top to keep it even. It worked quite well. I then sliced it in 3 layers.

The filling is a whipped double cream + vanilla paste, lemon zest and icing sugar with chopped fresh strawberries, all folded in. I grated some white chocolate as well and put in between the layers, as well as on top. And chilled for about an hour before serving.

Looking at the pictures I think I will click the Room for Improvement box as well, as the bottom layer of the pastry is not baked well enough. It tastes very nice though!

Last weekend on a random visit to Tk Maxx with Moka I bought 2 iron dishes, heavy, nice ones, wasn’t quite sure what for, but I bought them. This evening I though I’d have a great use for them, I could make the dessert that used to make us drool over the table in Zizzi’s in Canary Wharf, where we used to spend our breaks ( and money).

It took me 5 minutes to place sliced bananas in the dishes, pour over them a mixture of honey, lemon juice, cinnamon and brown sugar, dot them with butter and bake off for about 12 minutes. Next time though I will take my time and make proper caramel for them. Those in Zizzi used to be served with delicious pistachio ice cream, I didn’t have pistachio, I had coffee ice cream. I served it hot, with slightly melting ice cream on top.

Yum.