Sticky Date Pudding

This is one of those recipes that you usually have all the ingredients for in the pantry already, as for the dates I had some leftover from a previous recipe. There is really no effort needed to make sticky date, a quick and easy dessert to whip up if you have last minute guest coming over or if you want something in a jiffy.

Ingredients

Pudding

• 340g dried dates, pitted, chopped
• 2 teaspoons bicarbonate soda
• 500ml water
• 120g butter
• 340g brown sugar
• 4 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 340g self raising flour

Sauce

• 400g brown sugar
• 200ml cream
• 250g butter

 *Note that I half the ingredients and got 6 muffin size puddings.

Ingredients all mix in with the dates

Method

• Preheat oven to 150 $C. Grease and baking paper-line a round 26cm spring form cake tin.
• Place dates, bi-carb and water into a large saucepan and bring to the boil.
• Reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring, until dates break down. Turn off heat and cool slightly.
• Add butter, stir until melted and fully combined.
• Mix in brown sugar, add eggs and vanilla and stir well to combine.
• Fold in sifted flour until just combined.
• Pour into prepared tin and bake for 1 hour or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Cool in tin.
• For sauce, place all ingredients into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer for minutes until golden.
• To serve, slice pudding and cover generously with sauce.

Note: If you are using a muffin pan bake for 30mins instead.

Batter ready for baking

Instead of baking all the batter in a tin I use a muffin pan instead as I wanted to serve them individually, another reason is also sometimes I did not want to bake all the batter and prefer to freeze it and use it as and when I had a craving. That way all I needed to do was to defrost the batter, scoop it into the muffin pan and I had freshly bake warm puddings every time.

Sticky date with butterscotch sauce and ice cream

Such a warm and comforting dessert on a cold day, although it's a hit with my family any day.