Sticky Toffee Pudding

In his epic A la recherche des temps perdus, In search of lost time Marcel Proust describes how memories can be either voluntary or involuntary. Proust describes an episode in which the smell of a freshly baked madeline triggers a flashback. The same is ultimately also true of taste. And as in ratatouille how the feared food critic Anton Ego, is taken back to his childhood in rural france by the intense savour of a fresh ratatouille. Much the same thing recently happened to me.

I have vivid and fairly happy memories of being a young child, and one of my greatest pleasures was in microwave food, vegetable hot pot and microwave lasagne, followed by spotted dick or sticky toffee pudding. Soft melting sponge surrounded by a sweet, sticky caramel is truly one of the defining tastes of my childhood.

Sticky toffee pudding is a steamed pudding, of the kind which the english so often excell. Covered with a toffee sauce, it often requires cooking in a steamer, served with a toffee sauce. Nigella Lawson, who I adore, gives a no muss no fuss recipe, which is nothing short of revolutionary.

The sponge is a simple sponge, made with brown sugar, with the addition of some chopped dates, for extra moistness. The sponge is a simple wet into dry mix, I can't be bothered with the fussy creaming, sifting and folding which accompanies most cake recipes, and I've never really experienced any lighter sponge because of it. 

Once the dates have been folded into the sponge mixture, the batter is transferred into a large heatproof bowl, in the absence of said bowl, I instead divided my mixture between two le creuset soup bowls, for want of a better receptacle.

On top of the cake mixture I placed several lumps of butter, and some dark brown sugar, I enjoy using incredibly dark molasses sugar, but any moist brown sugar will work. I then put the bowl (or in my case bowls) into the oven, and fill them with recently boiled water, until the whole shebang is covered.

This recipe is truly a revelation, and as the sponge rises out of the sauce, becoming crisp and golden, the butter and sugar melds together without the need for so much as a whisk into a dark rich toffee sauce. The sponge remains gloriously moist thanks in part to the addition of dates, and to the sauce under which it is cooked.

I leave a list of ingredients below, and I strongly urge you to try this recipe, it truly is so simple to make, and the results are definitely worth what little effort there is involved. Steamed puddings are such an important part of our collective british baking heritage, that it is important to keep them alive, even if many of us would perish at the thought of steaming anything other than vegetables, this recipe is a nice compromise.

• Ingredients

• for the cake
• 100 grams dark brown muscovado sugar
• 175 grams self-raising flour
• 125 ml full fat milk
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 50 grams unsalted butter (melted)
• 200 grams chopped dates

for the sauce

• 200 grams dark brown muscovado sugar
• approx. 25 grams unsalted butter (in little blobs)
• 500 ml boiling water