Sticky toffee pudding

Cooked my first ever sticky toffee pudding over Christmas and, just for a laugh, I made it gluten free.  It doesn’t have to be gluten free.  During the preparation I did have my doubts but the end result was delicious.

Ingredients

• 200g dried dates, stoned and chopped.  Buy Medjool if you can.  Only place I could find Medjool was the farm shop but they are delicious.
• 250ml black tea (not too strong).  I used Yorkshire tea but I’m pretty sure any tea is fine, except peppermint or something which would just be weird.
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 85g unsalted butter, softened
• 175g self-raising flour – if you want this to be a gluten free recipe use Doves Farm SR gluten free flour
• 1 tsp mixed spice
• 175g golden caster sugar (I used granulated)
• 2 eggs beaten

Toffee sauce

• 100g light muscovado sugar
• 100g unsalted butter
• 142ml carton double cream

Method

Pre-heat oven to 160 °C (fan oven) and grease and line a baking tin.  The recipe says to use a brownie tin or ovenproof dish which isn’t overly helpful.  The brownie tin I use is 25cm sq. which I think is a little bigger than ideal.  The recipe still worked but I think the pudding would be better deeper.

Put the tea and dates into a saucepan.  Bring to the boil and cook for 3-4 minutes to soften the dates.  Stir in the bicarbonate of soda.  It will go frothy and a bit weird.  Don’t panic, this is normal.

Beat the butter and sugar until pale and creamy and then beat in the egg, flour, and mixed spice.  Fold in the tea and date mixture and then pour into buttered dish/brownie tin.

Bake for 30-35 minutes or until top is just firm to the touch.

While the pudding is baking make the sauce.  Put the sugar, butter and cream into a pan over a low heat and simmer until the sugar has dissolved.  Cook until it turns a lovely toffee colour..

Serve pudding by cutting into squares and serve with warm sauce and a large scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Easy to make and even easier to eat.