Puddings

Sticky Toffee pudding is an indulgent and comforting pudding on a cold winter day. The warm, sweet decadent crumbs drenched in toffee sauce, topped with some cold ice cream, is a treat indeed.

The excitement turning into disappointment on Natasha’s face is the regular visual I get whenever I plan to make sticky toffee pudding. Natasha, a good friend of ours, is a wonderful person who appreciates good food, especially the latter part of the meal viz. desserts, with oohs and aahs. A few years back some of us got together for dinner at a restaurant called “Blue Mango”. It was Natasha’s birthday. As usual she scanned the dessert section as soon as she got hold of the menu and her face lit up the moment she spotted sticky toffee pudding. Many laughs were shared over the meal and soon it was time to place the order for desserts.Orders were promptly placed and were executed in a random manner. Most of us digged in as soon as we got our desserts only to realise moments later that Natasha was yet to get hers. The guy  waiting on us, realised that he had forgotten to mention that they ran out of sticky toffee pudding and she therefore had to choose something else. The disappointment on her face was so intense that I had to ask her over the next weekend and I made sticky toffee pudding for her, despite my busy schedule.

This time the plan to make this pudding somehow got postponed a few times.And finally when I started putting the ingredients together I realised that the girl at the supermarket till had forgotten to pack the Oman dates I bought. Hence I had to return to the supermarket and for my misfortune on my way back home a young boy on a motorbike grazed the right side my car. He was perhaps trying to squeeze through the limited space available on the right since a bus had blocked off any options on the left.  To cut the story short,the minor accident held me up for the rest of the day and was in no mood to go ahead with the pudding that day thereafter. I finally managed to make the pudding yesterday. Yipee…

 

Sticky toffee pudding is an English steamed dessert consisting of a very moist cake with lots of dates drenched in toffee sauce. This is actually a cross between a cake and a pudding and is normally served warm with custard, whipped cream or vanilla ice cream, besides the toffee sauce.

According to Wikipedia it’s Francis Coulson, who with his partner set up the first country house hotel, created and served this pudding at his Sharrow Bay Country House Hotel. It looks like he got the recipe from Patricia Martin who published the recipe and served it at her hotel. Her son later told Simon Hopkinson, the food critic thst she got it from two Canadian soldiers who stayed at her hotel during second world war. The Canadian origin makes sense as the batter for the pudding is more similar to the American muffin rather than to an English sponge. Anyway it’s considered a modern British classic alongside the bread and butter pudding and Jam RolyPoly.

I used dates from Oman, which is one of the world’s top producers of dates. As an age old tradition Omanis plant a shoot of the date palm to celebrate the birth of a son.

I used 2 tablespoon of blackstrap molasses. Regular molasses or treacle can be used as well. If you find the flavour of molasses too strong replace it with honey or golden syrup. I used demerara sugar for the pudding and light brown sugar for the toffee sauce. If you prefer lighter coloured sauce use white refined sugar instead of brown sugar. Calorie conscious people can sustitute double cream with single cream.

To make the pudding lighter, separate the eggs and only beat in the yolks at the beginning. The egg whites can be whipped stiff separately and folded in as the last step.

Ramekins can be used to make individual puddings. I used an 8 inch square pan as soaking of the pudding with toffee will be easier. This pudding can be made in advance, and left at room temperature. Rewarm before serving. Can be kept in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks and warmed again just before serving.

My personal preference for a topping is the humble vanilla ice cream 🙂

~Min