Sticky Toffee Pudding

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •20cm square ovenproof baking dish
• •Heavy-bottomed saucepan for the sauce
• •Wooden spoon or spatula
• •Electric hand mixer (optional but useful for creaming the butter)

Instructions

1. 1

   Soak the dates

   Put the chopped dates in a bowl and pour the boiling water over them. Stir in the bicarbonate of soda. It will foam a little and smell strange for a moment. Don't worry about it. Leave the dates to sit for fifteen minutes, until they've gone soft and dark and slumped into something closer to a paste than a fruit. Mash them roughly with a fork. You want texture, not a purée.

   Medjool dates are worth the small extra cost. They're softer, sweeter, and give the sponge its proper dark, toffee-ish depth. The dry ones in the baking aisle will work, but you'll taste the difference.
2. 2

   Make the sponge batter

   Set the oven to 180C/160C fan. Butter a deep ovenproof dish, about 20cm square or thereabouts. Cream the butter and muscovado sugar together until the mixture is soft and the sugar has lost its grittiness. It won't go pale like a Victoria sponge. Muscovado stays dark and that's the point. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each, then the vanilla.

3. 3

   Fold in flour and dates

   Sift the flour and salt over the batter and fold gently with a spatula until almost combined. Now tip in the dates with all of their soaking liquid. It will look alarming. A dark, wet, lumpy mess. Keep folding until everything comes together into a loose, glossy batter. Stop as soon as the flour has disappeared.

   The batter is meant to be wetter than you expect. Don't be tempted to add more flour. That liquid becomes the sponge's extraordinary softness.
4. 4

   Bake the sponge

   Pour the batter into the buttered dish and smooth the top. Bake for thirty-five to forty minutes. The sponge is ready when it has risen, the top is set and springs back to a light touch, and a skewer comes out with a few moist crumbs clinging to it. The kitchen will smell of dates and burnt sugar and something like a Sunday in November.

5. 5

   Make the toffee sauce

   While the pudding bakes, start the sauce. Put the muscovado sugar, butter, and treacle in a heavy-bottomed pan over a low heat. Stir gently as it melts. Don't rush it. When the butter has disappeared into the sugar and the mixture is smooth and glossy, pour in the cream. It will bubble up dramatically. Keep stirring. Bring it to a gentle simmer and let it bubble away for two or three minutes, until it looks like proper toffee sauce: deep amber, thick enough to coat the back of a spoon, smelling like every good childhood pudding at once.

   Trust your nose. The sauce is done when it stops smelling of raw sugar and starts smelling of caramel. A minute more and it thickens beautifully. A minute less and it's too loose to cling.
6. 6

   Soak the pudding

   When the sponge comes out of the oven, prick it all over with a skewer. Pour about a third of the hot toffee sauce over the top and let it soak in for five minutes. The sponge will drink it greedily. This is the step that turns a good pudding into the pudding everyone remembers.

   If you want to go further, slide the soaked sponge back under a hot grill for a minute until the top caramelises and goes slightly sticky. Not essential. Quietly splendid if you do.
7. 7

   Serve generously

   Spoon the pudding into warm bowls, breaking it up rather than cutting neat squares. It isn't that kind of pudding. Pour the remaining hot toffee sauce over each portion, more than you think is sensible, then a spoonful of cold double cream or a scoop of vanilla ice cream alongside. The contrast between the hot sauce and the cold cream is the whole argument. Serve immediately, to people you like.

Chef Tips

• •Dark muscovado sugar matters. Not light brown, not demerara. You want the wet, sticky, almost molasses-heavy stuff that leaves your fingers tacky when you scoop it. It gives the sponge and the sauce their proper depth. A lighter sugar will make a perfectly nice pudding, but it won't make this one.
• •Make more sauce than you think you need. Always. Nobody in the history of sticky toffee pudding has ever said 'that's plenty, thank you.' I usually make a double batch of sauce and keep the rest in a jar in the fridge. It reheats gently in a pan and is extraordinary over vanilla ice cream, a baked apple, a spoonful of porridge on a cold morning, or occasionally off the spoon when nobody's looking.
• •The contrast between hot pudding and cold cream is the whole point. Don't warm the cream. Don't apologise for the decadence. Pour it straight from the jugso it pools and half-melts into the sauce. That's the moment the pudding earns its reputation.
• •If you're serving this at a dinner party, bake the sponge earlier in the day and reheat it gently, covered in foil, in a low oven for fifteen minutes before serving. Make the sauce fresh while people are finishing the main. It takes five minutes and fills the kitchen with the right smell at exactly the right moment.

Advance Preparation

• •The sponge can be baked up to a day ahead, cooled, and kept covered at room temperature. Reheat in a low oven, covered with foil, for about fifteen minutes before serving.
• •The toffee sauce can be made up to three days ahead and refrigerated in a jar. Reheat gently in a small pan over a low heat, stirring until smooth and pourable again. Do not boil on reheating or it can split.
• •Baked sponge freezes well for up to two months, wrapped in parchment and foil. Defrost overnight at room temperature before reheating.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 235g)