Canberra's freakshakes? Forget them, try this super-caramelised pudding and sauce

• Canberra's 'Freakshakes'

You know how sometimes life seems to be so perfectly balanced. It's like you've constructed, against all odds, this amazing tower out of a deck of cards and it's a beautiful thing. No idea how you did it but there it is, standing, teetering, but upright despite everything thrown at it.

And then there is one event in your life and the whole deck of cards comes tumbling down – it is then you realise how delicate that balance was and know this will take a lot to rebuild.

Mine came in the form of a phone call. When the number comes up to identify the school, I can hear the wind building up around my poised world.

So after hours in the netherworld that is the hospital triage lottery, hoping the next child that comes in doesn't trump your son's clearly broken arm, you reflect on your own fractured world. After a trip to another hospital, we emerge with a huge blue cast on my son's arm. It's there to reset the extra-articular, non-displaced, distal radial fracture. (While in the waiting room, I love the fact that you can diagnose what you think is the issue online on your phone. Makes you look pretty cluey when you get to the doctor and say "Jeez doc, I don't think it's comminuted​ but it could be both the radius and the ulna").

To cheer him up we decided that a trip was in order to have one of these huge "freak-show milkshakes" that broke the internet a few weeks back. It's Friday morning, a nice day, and we made the trip and found the cafe mainly as it seemed like everyone around was queuing up for a $12 milkshake.

But I was told: "Come back in 40 minutes." I informed her that we merely wanted to take away a couple of their fine shakes to cheer up my broken child, by the way, don't you know who I am?

Forty minutes later, after grabbing a coffee nearby at the much less private school-peopled Ona, another local business which was shot to fame recently and must be pondering the pace of popularity in this social-media fuelled world.

My son is pretty happy with his liquidised jar of Nutella and pretzel. I have a taste and then my pancreas immediately dumps a heap of insulin and calls down the line: "Code red, code red, we got no room for this."

You get this rush of adrenalin, like your body wants to use up a heap of adenosine triphosphate – see I'm still working on my waiting room doctorate – in reaction to this uptake of pure energy.

My freak-show shake is stranger still, it's warm for one thing – note to self: read menus more carefully – and it tastes like someone has blended up a sticky caramel pudding and zapped it. There's bit of peanut brittle and cake in it. While I love the story here, it really shows how crazy the internet can be when you do something out of the ordinary, but my body really doesn't need this intake of sugar.

A recipe for this is too easy, so when I get home with my child who is suffering close to a sugar coma, I look to what I need to make a nice sticky date pudding.

These are really easy to make. You can jazz this up with caramel popcorn and make it in some sort of bespoke vessel that you wouldn't normally associate with a pudding such as a teacup or you could just steam this in an old-fashioned pudding bowl.

Sticky date and salted caramel popcorn pudding with caramel and coffee sauce

200g pitted dates, chopped roughly
225ml water
1 tspn bi-carb of soda
60g soft butter
150g brown sugar
150g plain flour
2 eggs
caramel popcorn (recipe follows)
caramel and coffee sauce (recipe follows)

Bring the dates to the boil in the water, turn off and add the bi-carb of soda. Let this fizz away and leave for at least an hour, overnight even better. In a blender with flat beater attached, cream the butter and sugar, add the eggs and flour gradually with the beaters working fairly slowly. Once these are incorporated, fold in the dates. Spoon into vessel of your choice but only three-quarter fill them as the pudding will rise.

This is a steamed pudding, so cover the vessels with a little greaseproof paper, have the oven set at 150-160C. Place the pudding/s in a tray and pour enough boiling water around them to come up to the fill level. Close the oven and let them steam for 20-50 minutes depending on the size. They'll be ready when they come away from the sides and feel spongy to touch.

Pile up with caramel popcorn and drizzle with warm sauce.

Caramel popcorn

80g sugar
30g olive oil
50g popcorn
5g salt

Dissolve the sugar in a little water and bring to the boil in a pot that has a lid, I know "der". Cook the sugar until you get a light caramel forming. Once the colour turns add the oil, popcorn, salt and cover. You should get a pretty quick reaction and once the popping stops you can open the pot. You might need to trial this to get it right.

Caramel and coffee sauce

½ cup sugar
1 shot of espresso coffee
½ cup cream

Dissolve the sugar in a little water and bring to the simmer and slowly cook to a deeper caramel this time. Meanwhile, bring the cream and coffee shot to a simmer. You need this hot when you add the two together. Do this with adequate protection as the brew will bubble up and over. Keep stirring until it quietens.