Sticky toffee pudding

Ingredients

• Dates — pitted250 g
• Bicarbonate of soda1 tsp
• Flour200 g
• Butter200 g
• Dark muscovado sugar300 g
• Eggs3
• Baking powder1 tsp
• Double cream300 ml
• Vanilla1 tsp
• Salt1 pinch

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Cover the chopped dates with a cup of boiling water and the bicarbonate and leave them fifteen minutes.

   18 min

2. 2

   Mash the dates with a fork into a coarse paste, water and all.

   5 min

3. 3

   Beat a hundred grams of the butter with a hundred and fifty of the sugar until pale, adding the eggs one by one.

   10 min

4. 4

   Fold in the flour with the baking powder, then the date paste; the batter comes out loose, which is correct.

   6 min

5. 5

   Pour it into a greased tin and bake at 180 °C for thirty-five minutes, to a skewer that comes out with moist crumbs.

   38 min

6. 6

   Melt the remaining butter with the remaining sugar and the cream and cook the sauce five minutes to thicken.

   8 min

7. 7

   Prick the warm sponge with a skewer, pour over half the sauce and serve the rest in a jug.

   6 min

About the dish

The dates are covered in boiling water with bicarbonate and left fifteen minutes. The soda softens them to a paste and lifts the batter at the same time — both effects are wanted.

The sponge must stay moist. Test with a skewer that comes out with crumbs rather than clean: an overbaked pudding is beyond rescue by any amount of sauce.

The sauce goes on hot over a warm sponge and part of it soaks in. The rest comes separately in a jug so each person can add more.

Worth knowing

• — Prick the sponge before pouring. The sauce goes in through the holes and the pudding turns sticky rather than merely wet on top.
• — Dark sugar cannot be swapped for white. Its molasses gives both the colour and the caramel edge the whole flavour rests on.
• — The pudding reheats well. A portion in the microwave for thirty seconds with a spoon of sauce is the standard second-day route.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

640 kcal

Protein

6 g

Fat

34 g

Carbs

80 g

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