Sticky Toffee Pudding

I don’t normally put two dessert recipes up in one week; not good for the love handles and all; but I just couldn’t resist sharing this one.  And besides, half the fun of eating dinner, is to leave room for dessert!  Am I right?  Sticky Toffee Pudding is one of my all time favorite sweets and every time I make it I get asked for the recipe (Susan, this one’s for you!).  Of course, every time I make it I also have the internal battle of cooking it so that I can eat it, and then proceeding to spend my days staring at the pan of goodness and trying to hold myself back so that I don’t eat the whole thing in one sitting.  I’m not sure why I torture myself like this, but there it is.  Heck, I just ate a piece now with the excuse that I needed to take a picture of the final product to post here for you.  The calories don’t count if I’m doing it for the good of my fellow blog readers does it?

So what exactly is sticky toffee pudding you might be asking yourself?   Well self, let me help clear up the mystery for you.  It’s a British creation consisting of a soft sponge cake made from dates, that is then covered with a warm toffee sauce.  And let me tell you, the cake is good, but the toffee sauce?  Oh my heavens, you’ll take one bite and never want to eat another dessert again.  So, now that I’ve licked my plate clean while typing, it’s time to share the love with you all.  Here’s what you’ll need:

FOR THE CAKE:

1 Pound of Dates, Pitted and Chopped
11/2 tsps of Baking Soda
1/2 Cup of Butter
1 Cup + 2Tbsp of Sugar
3 Eggs
12/3 Cup of Flour
21/4 Cup of Boiling Water

FOR THE TOFFEE SAUCE:

1/2 Cup of Butter
1 Cup of Heavy Cream
1 Cup + 2Tbsp of Brown Sugar
11/2 tsps of Vanilla

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Then grab a medium bowl and throw your chopped dates into it.  Add the baking soda over the top of the dates and stir it to evenly cover the dates.  Now pour the boiling water over the dates, making sure they are all covered by the water. Let sit.  In a separate bowl, cream together the sugar and the butter.  When the mixture is well creamed, add in your eggs and beat well.  Add the flour and dates to the sugar/butter mixture and slowly combine so as to not splash the batter.

Once your batter is well mixed, pour it into a 9×13″ pan.  Here’s what you’ll have so far:

Throw that bad boy in your preheated oven and let cook for about 35-40 minutes; a toothpick should come out clean when checked.  And here’s what your finished cake should look like:

It’s looking good, but trust me, the next part is what makes it so stinkin’ special.

To make the toffee sauce you first want to add your stick of butter to a small saucepan and let it melt on medium low heat.  When the butter is melted add in your brown sugar, cream, and vanilla.  Stir until the mixture hits a light boil and then turn it down to a simmer and let it cook for another 5 minutes or so, stirring occasionally.  And that’s all there is to it!

All that’s left to do at this point is simply slice yourself a larger than necessary portion of cake and drizzle a few delicious spoonfuls of the warm toffee mixture over the cake.  Now, and this is the easy part, take a big beautiful bite and relish in your masterpiece!

One more note to add regarding this cake is that for storage of the sauce, I simply place it in it’s own container in the fridge and pull it out to warm up in the microwave for about 30 seconds when I’m ready to serve up a piece.  It’s a pretty forgiving sauce and it doesn’t seem to have a problem with repeated warmings.

Now get to your kitchen and make yourself a batch of sticky toffee pudding!