Sticky Date Pudding

1 1/2 cups dates, pitted and chopped
1 tsp baking soda
150ml boiling water
125 gm butter
2 eggs
1 heaped cup sr flour
3/4 cup sugar

Sprinkle soda onto dates, pour over boiling water. Stir and leave 10-15 minutes. Beat together butter and sugar, add eggs, flour and date mixture. Cook in a greased dish 30-35 minutes. Allow to stand while preparing sauce.

Sauce:
3 cups loosely packed brown sugar
75gm butter
300ml cream
1 tsp vanilla essence

Put all ingredients into saucepan, stir over medium heat until sugar dissolved. Bring to boil and simmer for 5 minutes.

If you are serving the dish whole onto the table, pour all of the sauce over the pudding and return to oven for 5-10 minutes until the sauce is mostly absorbed. If serving individual bowls just spoon a few tbsp over each and warm in the oven. Yummy if served with milk - its so sweet and heavy that cream or ice cream can sometimes be a bit much!!

Bread and Butter Pudding

½ loaf French bread, sliced 1.5cm thick
100gm melted butter
6 large juicy dried peaches, thinly sliced
2 400g cans peach slices, drained
5 eggs
½ cup castor sugar
500ml milk
¼ cup sliced almonds
3 tbsp raw sugar
4 tbsp brandy
cream to serve

Paint bread with melted butter. Place ½ the slices butter-side down into bottom of oven dish. Sprinkle dried peaches over top and ¾ canned peaches. Arrange remaining buttered bread slices on top. Fill in the gaps with remaining peach slices.

Beat eggs and castor sugar together and stir in the milk. Pour evenly over the bread mixture. Push it all down and allow to stand for 10 mins. Sprinkle with almonds and raw sugar and bake 1-1 ½ hours.

Rice Pudding

3 tbsp melted butter
4 tbsps pudding rice
2 tbsp caster sugar
½ tsp vanilla extract
500 ml milk/cream
fresh nutmeg

Grease a dish with ½ the melted butter, add rice, sugar, milk and vanilla.
Top with the remaining butter and grate over some nutmeg
Bake 2.5 hours – stir after 30 minutes and 60 minutes.