Place the flour in a medium-sized bowl, add the butter and using your fingers, rub the butter into the flour until coarse crumbs form.

In a separate small bowl combine the egg, buttermilk and vanilla, and whisk to combine. Pour the egg mixture into the butter and flour and combine with a spatula to form a dough.

To make the golden syrup, melt the butter in a 10-inch skillet. Once melted, add the sugar, syrup and water, and bring to a boil.

Scoop the dumpling batter with a tablespoon sized ice cream scoop, if you have one, and place in the boiling syrup. Reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes, periodically spooning the sauce over the dumplings that are not covered in it, until the dumplings are puffy and a toothpick inserted into one of the dumplings comes out clean.

Serve, still warm, straight from the pan, with vanilla ice cream.