Sticky Toffee Pudding

Also called Sticky Dates Pudding, this soft and very moist cake is one of my favorite desserts.


















For Pudding:

1. 180 g Dates pitted and chopped (use unsweetened dates)
2. 1 cup Water
3. 1 tsp Baking soda
4. 1 1/4 cup Flour
5. 1 tsp Baking powder
6. 1/2 tsp salt
7. 4 tbsp (55 g) Unsalted Butter
8. 3/4 cup Caster or Brown sugar
9. 2 Eggs at room temp
10. 1 tsp Vanilla drops

For Toffee Sauce

1. 2 cups Cream
2. 1/2 cup Demerara sugar
3. 2 1/2 tbsp Molasses/honey
4.  Pinch of Salt

• In a pan, combine all the toffee sauce ingredients and bring to boil. Stir constantly until the sugar melts. In a low flame keep stirring until you get a think mixture.
• Take a baking dish and pour half the sauce and freeze it. Keep the other half for serving.
• To make the pudding: In a pan, add water and dates and bring to boil. Once the water starts boiling remove from heat and add baking soda. Keep it warm.
• Sift together four, baking powder.
• In a separate bowl, beat butter and sugar until fluffy. The beat in the eggs and vanilla drops.
• Now stir in half the four mixture, then the dates mixture and then the remaining flour. No need to beat it, just mixing with a plastic spatula is sufficient
• Remove the baking dish from freezer. Pour the batter on top of the sauce in the baking dish and bake for 45-50 mins at 180' C. Test the cake by inserting toothpick in the center, it should come out with mist crumbs.
• Serve with vanilla ice cream and toffee sauce.

Few ingredients for this cake is not easily available in India. I have substituted molasses with honey for the sauce. Likewise demerara sugar can be substituted with brown sugar. The toffee sauce calls for heavy cream but I used fresh cream and it worked well. Just look out for the consistency of the sauce. The brown sugar combined with salt increases the sweetness of the cake. If you are not a sweet tooth go with caster sugar.

Next time I am going to blend the dates mixture and then add it to the cake batter. Lets see how it turns out.