Recipes: Malva Pudding

Quick 'n Easy puddings are way up there on my Sunday night decadency's, and as with all my recipes, I gave this Malva my own little twist.  I like playing with my food and sometimes the combinations won't appeal to everyone, so feel free to serve yours with just plain vanilla ice cream.
INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
50g of soft butter
2 tbsp of apricot jam (I used an apricot and passionfruit jam I bought when I was in Zanzibar)
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 cup of flour
1 cup of milk
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda


Preheat your oven to 190 degrees.
Using an electric mixer (or whisk if you have the energy), and mix the sugar, butter, jam, vinegar and egg together until well combined and sugar is almost dissolved.  Add your flour and mix for a minute or so, followed by your milk and bicarb.  Pour the mixture into a glass or oven proof dish - no need to butter and flour it first - nice and easy.
Bake for about 45 minutes until nicely browned and set.


Meanwhile, make your sauce and custard:
SAUCE
50g of butter
1/2 cup of brown sugar
1/4 cup peach or orange juice (I combined the two)
1/4 cup of water
3/4 cup of cream


Heat together until sugar is dissolved


CUSTARD
3 egg yolks 
1/2 cup of brown sugar (usually you would use castor sugar, but I wanted a caramelly flavour to the custard)
1 cup of pouring cream
1 vanilla pod
1 tsp good instant coffee


Beat the eggs and sugar until sugar has dissolved and becomes a pale yellow colour.  Gently bring the cream, coffee and scraped vanilla pod to the boil.  While beating the egg yolk mixture, pour in a dash of the hot cream mixture, then pour the egg yolks into the cream, beating all the time.  Put back onto the stove on a very low heat and keep beating it until you get the desired consistency.  Pass it through a sieve to remove the vanilla pod and set aside.


Once the malva is cooked, remove the oven and pierce it quite a few times with a fork.  While it is still hot, ladle the sauce on a spoon at a time allowing the pudding to absorb it before adding another spoon.


Serve hot with the custard, drizzle with some maple syrup and some toasted coconut.  Take it one step further and serve it with coconut ice cream... mmmmm!