Peanut butter and jelly are the original childhood match made in heaven (or sugar-coated nightmare, depending on whose parents you ask). Although I never truly appreciated the pairing until later on in life, I was always enamoured by the idea of gooey jelly-rippled nut butter squished between two fluffy white hunks of warm bread. I think that my obsession with American television shows may have had something to do with this...
My days at boarding school were no exception - every lunchtime was peppered with the glee of commercial-sized peanut butter tubs being passed around the enormous dining hall like molten treasure, people weaving in and out of lost scarves and squidges of sauce on the wooden floorboards in a desperate attempt to get a jar that hadn't already been pillaged (after all, nobody likes to find multicoloured crumbs and meagre scrapings at the bottom of any pot of communal foodstuff). I'm more of a 4 part peanut butter, 1 part bread, 0 part jelly kind of girl, but this is my homage to leisurely lunch breaks spent huddled around wooden tables with buttery hands and a well positioned arm to protect the holy grail of sandwich fillings from prying, eager eyes.
INGREDIENTS
PEANUT BUTTER PUDDING
1/2 cup of whole oats
1/2 cup of plant milk
1/2 cup of cool water
1/2 a large banana or 1 medium banana
1/2 teaspoon of ground vanilla powder or extract
2 tablespoons of unsalted peanut butter
1 tablespoon of maple syrup (optional)
RASPBERRY JELLY SWIRL
1 tablespoon of fresh or frozen raspberries
1 teaspoon of maple syrup
TOPPINGS
Peanut butter
Raspberries
Banana
METHOD
- First place the oats in a food processor and blitz until a fine powder is reached - this is what gives this recipe a pudding-like consistency. If you're more of an oatmeal kind of person, feel free to skip this step.
- Get a medium-sized saucepan and add the crushed oats, plant milk, water, vanilla, and peanut butter. Peel the banana, then break it into small pieces and mash it into the pot too. I like to leave some chunks as they go all gooey and make it taste even better! Place the pot over a medium heat and stir constantly until bubbling and thickened to a reasonably dense texture. Take off the heat, and pour into a serving bowl.
- Rinse out the pot and place back on the heat. Add the raspberries and stir until melty, then add the maple syrup, stir thoroughly, and spoon in random dots on top of the pudding. Using a wooden skewers, swirl these dots around to get a cute effect like in the image above. Finally dollop with peanut butter, top with sliced bananas, and sprinkle with raspberry nibs. Enjoy!