The Battle of the Puddings

This weekend a friend of mine gave me two beautiful pudding basins.  Obviously, I had to make a pudding.  This started a perplexing debate: pumpkin pudding cake -vs- sticky toffee pudding.  In the end, the sticky toffee pudding won.  The reason was this.  My youngest sister recently moved to Toronto (which is 4 hours away from me) and being the sappy person that I am, I have been thinking about all the special times we spent together.  One of my fondest memories is the short week we spent together in Paris and Dublin.

 Hi Gnomie!

We trekked around Paris like two girls on a mission, but when we got to Dublin and realized that we were staying at a BEAUTIFUL hotel, the lounging began.  We sat around, watched TV and enjoyed endless room service.  This wonderful hotel not only provided wonderful service but also set out a sweet treat with a recipe at the reception desk every day.  How awesome is that?!  Now, to get to the point.  One of these recipes was Sticky Toffee Pudding and that brings us to today and the pudding basins.

Upon reviewing the recipe, I had three small problems.  First, the recipe was scaled to feed the entire city of Dublin.  I had to divide the recipe by 4 and I still ended up with a fair share of pudding.  Second, I was 100 grams short of dates (boo).  Third, I expected this to be a dense, sweet and dark pudding.  Instead it was rather light and not very sweet.  The taste was still good but different then expected.  After I realize that the pudding would not be as dense as I had planned, I made a DELICIOUS caramel, vanilla sauce that just brought the whole thing together.

Sticky Toffee Pudding - adapted from the nicest hotel in Dublin

150 g butter, softened
63 g sugar, either white or brown
6 eggs
375 g self raising flour
1 1/2 Tbsp. baking soda
550 g chopped dates

In a saucepan over medium heat, cook the dates until they are puree.  If the mixture begins to stick, stir in a small amount of water.  Beat butter and sugar until fluffy.  Beat in eggs.  Stir in flour, baking soda and a pinch of salt.    Beat in the date puree.  Do not over mix.  Spoon the batter (3/4 full) into buttered pudding basins (ramekins work well also).  Bake for 40 minutes on 320 degrees.  Cool 10 minutes then unmold and serve with caramel sauce.

Caramel Vanilla Sauce

1 tsp. vanilla paste
4 Tbsp. unsalted butter
2/3 c turbinado sugar
1/2 c heavy cream

In a saucepan, combine vanilla paste, butter, sugar and cream.  Place on medium heat.  Stir until combines.  Let sauce simmer for 3-5 minutes until all ingredients are dissolved and slightly thickened.  Remove from heat.  Keep warm and pour over pudding before serving.

Enjoy!!