Serves: 8

Difficultly: 4/5

Time: 30 minutes prep time, 20-25 minutes cooking time

Origin: United Kingdom

About the dish: As one of the most loved and popular dishes in my family, puddings don’t get better than this. This is the recipe for the ultimate sticky toffee pudding. It brings together many traditional flavours, making this pudding even more irresistible. I simply can’t get enough of this recipe and how delicious it is.

Ingredients

For the pudding:

225g whole medjool dates

175ml boiling water

1 tsp vanilla extract

175g self-raising flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 eggs

85g butter

140g demerara sugar

2 tbsp black treacle

100ml milk

For the toffee sauce:

175g light muscovado sugar

50g butter

225ml double cream

1 tbsp black treacle

Method

Stone and quarter the dates placing them into a bowl and then cover them with boiling water. Leave them for 30 minutes while you prepare the rest of the cake mixture. Then, drain the left-over water, mix in the vanilla extract and mash the dates.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Beat together the butter and demerara sugar in a large bowl until the mixture is creamy (it will remain a bit grainy due to the sugar, but this is okay!).

Beat together the two eggs and pour them into the sugar and butter mixture a little at a time. Beat the mixture well as you mix.

Beat in the black treacle. Then, gently fold in the flour and bicarbonate of soda, adding the milk in at the same time

Stir in the soaked and mashed dates. At this point the mixture should be soft and thick.

Spoon this evenly into the cases. I used little cardboard cases; however, you could use little ceramic dishes if you have them. Make sure to butter them before putting the mixture in. Cook them for 20-25 minutes until risen and firm.

While the cakes are in the oven, make the toffee sauce. In a medium size pan, combine the muscovado sugar, butter and half the double cream. Bring to a boil over a medium heat, stirring all the time until the sugar has completely dissolved.

Stir in 1 tbsp black treacle, then turn the heat up to bring the mixture to a boil, stirring occasionally until it becomes a rich toffee colour. Make sure not to burn it!

Take the pan off the heat and beat in the rest of the double cream.

When the cakes are cooked, remove them from the oven and leave to cool for a few minutes before pouring on the toffee sauce

Serve with custard, cream or on their own and enjoy!

If you want to save these for later, just drizzle over half the toffee sauce and save the rest. When ready to serve, heat the oven to 180 degrees and cover them in tin foil, warm them up for 15-20 minutes or until the sauce is bubbling. Then, heat through the remainder of the toffee sauce ready to pour on as serving. The puddings keep for a few days.

For more savoury and tasty treat recipes, follow @ems.homecooking on Instagram.