Warm Sticky Date Pudding w/ Butterscotch Sauce

Ingredients

Date mixture

300g pitted dates, cut in half

1 c boiling water

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Pudding base

80g unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/2 c caster sugar

2 eggs, at room temperature

115g self raising flour

75g plain flour

2 tsp ground cardamom

Butterscotch sauce

185 ml pouring cream

1 c brown sugar, lightly packed

60g unsalted butter

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Method

Pre heat oven to 180°C/355°F

Placed pitted and sliced dates in the boiling water and bicarbonate of soda mix and leave to stand for 10 minutes.

After the 10 minutes is up then smash them up with a fork. Leave some larger pieces as they are nice through the pudding.

Prepare a muffin tray or similar with melted butter and some greaseproof paper at the base.

Mix together the sugar and butter till light and fluffy.Add one egg and beat till completely combined and then repeat with the second egg.

Of note… My egg, sugar and butter mixture always, always splits. I have tried placing the bowl in warm water and it still happens, but the end result is always fantastic anyway so don’t worry if this happens to you too.

Mix together the two flours and cardamom and pour into the sugar/egg mixture along with the date mixture. Stir to combine.

It should look something like this…

Spoon into your prepared pan and place into the pre heated oven for 25 minutes.

Now the most important part of baking sweets, licking the bowl! Do not forget this vital step.

Remove the cooked muffins from the oven and leave to cool a little before removing from the tins.

While the muffins are resting, place the cream, butter, vanilla and brown sugar into a saucepan and heat till smooth.

Bring to a low simmer and cook for 5 minutes. Leave to cool down a little.

Pour your butterscotch sauce into a bottle of jar and it will keep for about a week in the fridge.

To serve, heat the puddings and butterscotch sauce, pour the sauce of the pudding and top with vanilla ice-cream.

 

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Posted on 12th March 2014

A lesson learned… Please don’t try this at home!

It’s amazing how things can change from normal to absolute dire panic in a split second. This is what happened to me two weeks ago… Happily preparing spaghetti at about 6:30pm on a Sunday evening, I dropped a pot of boiling water on the floor. I had a loose top on, the saucepan’s handle was sticking out and the pot must have been off balance on the stove top. I threw in some pasta, spun around to get some more and that was it… that was the moment, that was exactly when Sunday night took a turn for the worse.

Frantic calls to the hospital, to my sister (nurse) and to Bella (to take Seb who was in shock not quite knowing what was going on) and I was whisked away with feet and hands in a large bucket of water to the hospital, husband in tow. To say the pain was extraordinary is an understatement, it was just insane… lots of regular doses of morphine was needed that night!

Anyway, with mid to deep level burns (they no longer grade a burn in degrees) on my foot and burns to my knee and hand, I was told not to be on my feet for more than 15 minutes at a time. Cooking was left to hubby, which fortunately didn’t require much more than reheating as I had made 3 kg of spaghetti sauce and a big batch of Thai green curry paste the weekend prior. All sitting in the freezer, and unbeknownst to me at the time, ready for the two weeks off my feet… almost too funny how things work out.

So, now I’m getting back into the swing of things I wanted to cook something soul warming, something that will soothe and sate the cooking void I had just been in, and what’s better than a traditional Warm Stick Date Pudding with Butterscotch Sauce.

Please take care in the kitchen, an accident is only a micro second away.

Blondie 🙂