Self-Saucing Sticky Toffee Pudding

All hail the sticky toffee pudding and its deep, rich, date-filled sponge and luscious, buttery caramel sauce. There’s a reason it seems to be everyone’s favourite pud. Despite it’s saccharine description, this manages not to be sickly thanks to the molasses flavour of dark brown sugar and a suggestion of spice from the black treacle. A scattering of salt at the end also helps balance the flavours. As with many recipes in this book, the easiest way to make this is to place your pan on the scales and weigh everything directly into the dish.

Total time: 1 hour, 15 minutes
Prep time: 30 minutes
Cook time: 45 minutes
Serves: 1

Ingredients

For the batter:

• 25g Medjool dates, chopped into small pieces
• 25g boiling water
• ¼ tsp vanilla extract
• 20g dark brown sugar
• 10g black treacle
• 15g butter, softened
• 25g self-raising flour
• pinch of bicarbonate of soda
• pinch of salt

For the sauce:

• 15g butter
• 15g dark brown sugar
• 50g boiling water

To serve:

• flaky sea salt

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan).

Place the dates in a small pie dish or cast-iron frying pan. Cover with the 25g boiling water and let sit for 20 minutes to soften slightly.

Once soft, add in the rest of the ingredients for the batter and mix everything together thoroughly. Flatten out the batter slightly then put the butter and sugar for the sauce on top of the batter – don’t mix them in. Gently pour over the 50g boiling water so that it sits on top of the batter.

Bake for 35 minutes, then leave to cool for 10 minutes before eating to allow the sauce to settle. Sprinkle with the flaky salt before eating.