Teacup banana puddings

With all this heat, fruit goes ripe in no time – as much as Joao and I love bananas (and eat them on a daily basis) it is impossible to go through a bunch in 2-3 days.

These teacup puddings looked adorable on the magazine – I cannot resist bananas and caramel together – and were also a perfect way to use the egg whites I had left from making ice cream.

Teacup banana puddings
from Donna Hay magazine

1 ½ tablespoons (21g) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup (175g) brown sugar, packed
¼ cup (60m) water*
2 bananas, thinly sliced (lengthwise)
½ cup + ½ tablespoon (75g) all purpose flour
1 cup + 1 tablespoon (150g) icing sugar
¼ teaspoon baking powder
¾ cup (75g) almond meal (ground almonds)
3 egg whites
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 ½ tablespoons (77g) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F; butter well four 1-cup (240ml) capacity ovenproof teacups.
Place the butter (21g), brown sugar and water in a small saucepan over low heat and stir until sugar is dissolved. Bring to the boil and cook for 3-4 minutes or until the sauce is syrupy. Set aside.
Place slices of the banana in prepared teacups. Spoon half the sauce over the bananas, place the teacups on a baking tray. Set aside.
Sift the flour, icing sugar and baking powder into a medium bowl and mix in the almond meal. Add the egg whites, vanilla and melted butter and stir to combine. Spoon the mixture over the bananas and bake for 20 minutes or until golden and cooked when tested with a skewer. Invert the puddings onto plates and serve with the remaining sauce.

* next time I make these, I’ll be using cream instead of water to make the caramel – with water, it turned out too dark and too runny

Makes 4