Sticky toffee pudding

My favourite STP (as I was googling recipes for this, I did not know that STP had an acronym) is from one of our (A and my) favourite Sunday roast places. Smokehouse's STP comes in a bowl with the pudding peeping through the overflowing toffee goodness. Of course topped with ice cream. The bowl comes warm and I wonder if that was the home the pudding had been baked in. I tried to find a picture of it but I have come to realise that I'm really not much of a food photographer. Even finding a picture for the "About" page took me ages. I thought A might have one, but we've been too many times to bother letting the camera eat first.

I used the Guardian's recipe for this STP: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2011/apr/14/cook-perfect-sticky-toffee-pudding

I trust the Guardian recipes because they are an amalgamation of several recipes the author has researched. It just looks like the author has done their homework for me and it's an ABC process. Their crumble recipe: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2010/oct/14/how-to-make-perfect-crumble is foolproof imo.

Sadly, since there are only 2 of us at home, and I only had granulated sugar and demerara sugar, and no walnuts...this is home cooking at its best. Here goes:

How to cook perfect sticky toffee pudding from the Guardian (serves 6)

Since I halved the recipe, all ingredients are halved. BUT I kept the same quantities for the sauce cos I thought if all else failed, toffee can engulf everything and it will be okay.

175g medjool dates, stoned and roughly chopped used around 80g 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda used 1/2 tsp but I think it was too much (will explain later) 300ml boiling water 150ml 50g unsalted butter, softened 25g 80g golden caster sugar 40g granulated sugar because who actually has golden caster sugar 80g dark muscovado sugar would have loved to use this as I think it would make the cake even richer but alas demerara sugar was the only brown coloured sugar I had at home leftover from who knows when I last used it. Might invest in a pack of this. More on sugar next time 2 eggs, beaten 1 egg 175g flour 85g self-raising flour 1 tsp baking powder didn't use any of this cos I used self-raising flour. Due to the flour shortage, I learnt that self-raising flour = plain flour + baking powder so I went with it. It worked out for my chocolate cake last time! Pinch of ground cloves used some cinnamon 75g walnuts nope

For the sauce - followed to the tee (except the sugars were replaced) 115g unsalted butter 75g golden caster sugar 40g dark muscovado sugar 140ml double cream

Sometimes I get confused by halving the ingredients. Actually a lot of the time. But I'm too lazy to rewrite them so hey ho. When I last made bread rolls I put in 1 egg instead of half (the worst kind of ingredient to halve), and the extra amount of flour (!!! precious commodity !!!) I had to use *sigh

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C. Butter a baking dish approximately 24cm x 24cm.

Because I halved the ingredients for the cake, I thought the dish should be smaller. I had a limited selection of baking dishes so settled for my loaf tin. It worked out ok volume-wise.

2. Make the sauce by putting all the ingredients into a pan with a pinch of salt and heating slowly until the butter has melted, then turn up the heat and bring to the boil. Boil for about 4 minutes, until the sauce has thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon what does this mean?? I cooked it till it looked like this and it was tasty tasty:

Pour half the sauce into the base of the dish and then put it in the freezer while you make the rest of the pudding.

3. Put the dates and bicarbonate of soda in a heatproof dish and cover with the boiling water. Leave to soften while you prepare the rest of the pudding.

I left them to soak for about 45mins-1h? This STP was part of a fancy dinner A and I were having which included steak and a cheese course and wine and yadda yadda. With my tiny kitchen, the steak had priority before the cake. Save the best for last, some may say. I think this is where it might have gone wrong. The cake consistency was fine but there was this alkaline taste?? If anyone understands. If you eat yellow noodles from a hawker centre (God you'll only get this if you're Singaporean), sometimes you get the alkaliney taste?? Yea the cake had that which I was super upset about. Hence the doubling of toffee came in handy + vanilla ice cream makes life better in general. I'd either soak for a shorter period of time or put even less bicarb/none? It's supposed to soften the dates but maybe if you soak long enough it doesn't need it...somebody enlighten me?

4. Beat together the butter and sugar until fluffy, and then beat in the eggs, a little at a time. Stir in the flour, baking powder, cloves and a pinch of salt until well combined, and then add the dates and their soaking water, and the walnuts, and mix well.

Because I used half the butter and sugar it wasn't exactly fluffy but quite bitty...but I don't think it would have affected the cake too much. It was still spongy out of the oven. The batter was quite thin prior to baking perhaps because I didn't use walnuts.

5. Take the dish out of the freezer and pour the batter on top of the toffee sauce.

Looked like this out of the freezer lol too much stuff in the freezer these days - no flat base!

Put into the oven for 30 minutes, until firm to the touch, and then take out of the oven.

I checked it after 20 mins but it was still quite liquidy. Left it for 5 more mins I think, and then poked it with my finger and it was springy and brown around the edges

6. Heat the grill to medium, and poke a few small holes evenly over the surface with a skewer or fork, and then pour over the rest of the sauce. Put briefly under the grill, keeping an eye on it as it can easily burn. Serve with vanilla ice cream.

Before and after grilling the toffee. It only took a few minutes for it to seriously bubble then I decided to remove it from the heat. It's not the prettiest but it did get quite sticky. I really enjoyed the bottom bits which were extra sticky. I think my pudding needed the extra toffee and vanilla ice cream! The Nigella recipe says poke holes and leave it for 10 minutes without grilling so that could work too.

End product! Not too bad looking huh! Except for the alkaline taste, I think it went alright. Satisfied the sweet tooth for the night, and some more. Into the microwave for slightly under 2 minutes and it becomes pretty sticky. This could become a dinner party pleaser but would probably need a couple more goes to work out how to eliminate the alkaline taste.

Stay safe,

Nic x

Halfway through writing this post, I paused for lunch and switched on the oven in preparation for my salmon. As I wash my rice, the oven goes BAM! with a white spark. The oven stops humming but the light is still on. The kitchen smells kinda funky and A comes in. Yup, my 6 year old oven has died. This had happened before with my cooker hood (complete with bam and spark) and all it needed was a fuse change. Unfortunately, the electrician (who thank God still picked up his phone with babies crying in the background) says it's most likely the element and by the time I get someone round and blaady blaa it's best I buy a new oven. Chaos ensues in my head. I catastrophised. A short cry, phone call to my mom (because you always call your mom when times seem inconsolable) and dramatic post on Instagram later (my life is a joke halp), I decide to buy a new oven which is going to be installed on Sunday! I just hope it all goes well else this blog could see its demise after 2 posts. Stay tuned.