Tonight I made sticky date pudding that was, as the title of the recipe suggested, “to die for”. It’s a Nigella recipe, based on a Marco Pierre White recipe.
Never having made it, I was surprised at how long it took to bake. The recipe said 10-12 minutes, but mine took well over half an hour, so I recommend you watch and check your puddings at regular intervals to ensure optimum cooking time is achieved.
I could only manage to eat half of it, as it was so rich and sticky, and datey, and puddingy, but probably also because I had just eaten a roast chicken dinner.
Ingredients
- 150 grams dates (pitted)
- 150 ml water
- 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
- 60 grams unsalted butter, softened
- 150 grams dark brown muscovado sugar
- 2 eggs
- 180 grams flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- Sauce – 200 grams caster sugar
- 200 grams unsalted butter
- ½ lemon, juice only
- 200 ml cream
Method
- Pit and chop the dates. Put them in a bowl, cover them with the water and sprinkle over them the teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda. Let the mixture soak and soften for at least 1/2 hour.
- Put the date and water mixture in a pan on the stove and heat till boiling point. Cook the mixture for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Let the mixture cool then puree it.
- Preheat the oven to 160˚C.
- In another bowl mix and cream together the butter and dark muscavado sugar. Add the eggs and date puree and mix. Sieve the flour and baking powder into to the wet mixture.
- If using individual molds, butter and flour 6 of them and fill them 3/4 up with batter. If using a square tin, butter it and using a long piece of wax paper the width of the tin, make it stick on one side of the tin, the bottom of it and the other side in a U shape, then fill it with the batter and smooth the top.
- Place either the separate molds or the square tin in the oven and bake for around 10 to 12 minutes.
- For the sauce: In a pan on the stove put the butter and caster sugar, let it melt. Bring to boiling point whisking continuously, the mixture will start to caramelize. Do not stop whisking, the mixture will go from a white gold color to a nutty brown one.
- Take it off the heat and pour in the lemon juice. Do be careful as the whole thing will swish up and splatter. Calm it down by pouring the cream over it, whisking all along.
- Sieve the sauce to remove any possible sugar chucks from it. How to serve: If using the square tin, turn the cake out on a plate that is at least 3 cm deep.
- Prick the top of the cake with a fork and pour the hot sauce all over it, saturating it. If using the individual molds, turn them on individual plates, and spoon over them a generous amount of toffee sauce.
This pudding can be served with cream, but works best with a good quality vanilla ice cream as it is the mixture of hot and cold that one is after.
