Baked banana-cake pudding

This dessert is so incredibly quick and easy to make, yet gives so much comfort! The banana pudding is a bit of a twist on banana cake, given a little rum kick, then served loaded with rich, indulgent rum’n’raisin caramel sauce – add a generous scoop of vanilla bean icecream or softly whipped cream and resistance is futile.

The sauce is also amazing slathered over banana-filled crepes, banana ice-cream sundaes and even warmed chocolate brownies.

If you fancy, the cake pudding can be made in individual dishes, just reduce the cooking time and keep an eye on them from 25 minutes, testing with a skewer when they look golden and spring back when pressed in the centre. Preparation: 15 minutes Cooking: 40 minutes Serves: 8

❚ 100g soft butter plus 1 tablespoon ❚ cup brown sugar ❚ 2 eggs ❚ 3 ripe bananas, mashed ❚ 1 tablespoon dark rum ❚ 2 cups self-raising flour ❚ 1 banana, sliced in half, lengthways

Lightly butter a 23cm round ovenproof dish with the 1 tablespoon of butter and preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Beat the remaining butter with the brown sugar in a mixing bowl until soft and creamy.

Add the eggs, bananas and rum and beat briefly to combine.

Sift in the flour in two lots, folding to combine, then spoon into prepared dish.

Place the halved banana, cut side up, on top of the cake batter.

Bake for 40 minutes (or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean), then leave to sit for 5 minutes before serving with Rum’n’raisin Caramel Sauce and lashings of vanilla bean icecream or whipped cream.

Rum’n’raisin caramel sauce

Preparation: 10 minutes Cooking: about 6 minutes Makes: 1 cup

❚ 1 cup caster sugar ❚ cup water ❚ cup cream ❚ 2 tablespoons dark rum ❚ 1 tablespoon butter ❚ cup raisins

Whisk caster sugar and water together in a pot over a mediumhigh heat. Brush any sugar that has stuck to the pot from the sides with a small brush.

Cook, without stirring, until the sugar has crystallised white, then turned a light golden amber colour.

Swirl the pan to ensure even cooking, then as soon as it is pale amber, remove from the heat and whisk in the cream – it will froth up madly in a wild way, but just whisk hard then add the rum and butter and whisk again until incorporated. Add raisins and stir to combine.

Once cooled, pour into a container and store in the fridge. Before serving, reheat gently in a small pot or the microwave.

My slow-roasted lamb

Wild and stormy weather lends itself to hunkering down with all manner of easy comfort-food delights, and one of my go-to things to make is slow-roasted lamb – could there be anything simpler?

Just choose a leg or shoulder of lamb, season well with salt and pepper, make slits in the top and stud with peeled garlic cloves, then elevate it on thickly sliced onion and aromatics like rosemary, bay leaves or thyme in a roasting dish and pour liquid (wine/cider/beer) deeply around the base. Cover with tinfoil and bung in the oven at 150C for up to 6 hours or more.

Remove the foil, crank the temperature up to 180C and give it another 45 minutes to an hour to become burnished and golden.

The meat will be so tender you can shred it with a fork!

Soups are another easy comfortfood fix – there are so many fabulous combinations – pumpkin and kumara dotted with pancetta and blue cheese; cauliflower and celeriac, carrot, lentils and cumin; chicken, leek and thyme; mixed mushrooms with a hit of sherry… the options are endless – but I confess, whatever the flavour I can’t resist a spoonful of thick cream or yoghurt on top to finish it off. ❚ Recipes, food styling and photography by Sarah Tuck