Sticky Toffee Pudding

Ingredients:

- Butter
- Dates
- Caster Sugar
- 4 eggs
- Vanilla Essence
- Self Raising Flour
- Baking Powder
- 1 pint of water
- Bowl, knife, scales..

Step 1:

Chop up the dates, make sure you take all the pits are out of the middle (this part is important!!).

Step 2:

Add them to the pint of water in a pan on the stove, turn on the heat (obviously) and bring to the boil, let them simmer very very gently as you don't want a lot of the water to boil off. The idea is to soften up the dates.

Step 3:

While that is doing its thing, add 120grams of butter and 320g of caster sugar to a bowl.

Step 4:

Cream together the butter and sugar until nicely blended.

Step 5:

Add 4 eggs (always crack the eggs into a bowl before adding in case you get shells in your eggs) and 320g of self raising flour (sifted).

Step 6:

Mix this well with a hand mixer or something like that, it'll be very thick and sticky.

Step 7:

Go back to your dates, they should be nice and soft now so take them off the heat.

Step 8:

Here's the fun bit, add two teaspoons of baking powder to the hot water and watch it foam up like mad as you stir it in.

Step 9:

Pour all of this into the bowl of yummy pudding mix.

Step 10:

Hand mix this all together well so it's evenly mixed up.

Step 11:

Pour into a baking pan (I used a springform pan for this, easy to get the thing out after cooking).

Step 12:

Cook at 374F for 25-30 mins, if you stick it with a skewer it should come out sticky but not wet.

Step 13:

Now that the pudding is done, we want some Toffee Sauce!! For this you need:

- One completed pudding (in the background)
- Demerera Sugar
- Thick heavy cream
- Butter

Like all cooking, this sauce is all about ratios. 2 parts cream, 1 sugar, 1 butter. In this I used 300ml of cream, 150g butter, 150g sugar.

Step 14:

Add the sugar and butter to a pan.

Step 15:

Heat and melt it thoroughly, don't let it stick so keep stiring it all the time.

Step 16:

Add the cream and bring to the boil and let it simmer for a while, again keep stiring so it doesn't stick.

Step 17:

Pour over slices of pudding, add a teaspoon of thick cream on the top, serve immediately