STICKY + NUTTY TOFFEE PUDDING

Earlier in the month I showed you how to make a delicious chocolate orange sauce. Now you need the perfect pud to pour it over and here it is in the form of a beautiful sticky toffee pudding laced with chunks of pecans for added crunchy goodness. It's essentially an all in one mix so as long as you have all the ingredients and a stick blender you can have this gorgeous pudding rustled up in no time. Pour over the sticky toffee topping and you are in pure pudding paradise and that's before you have even added that scrummy chocolate sauce.

I wouldn't really tinker with anything in the recipe below. You need sugars like demerara and molasses to really put the sticky into this toffee pudding. Any other types of sugar is really not going to give you that classic flavor. The only thing I would suggest changing if you wanted too would be the pecans. Use walnuts, Brazil's or even chopped mixed nuts, anything with a bit of bite to give that pudding added texture. Don't fret if your allergic to nuts, just leave those bad boys out and just enjoy that beautifully moist toffee covered cake.

Make sure you have a stick blender before starting this recipe; you will need one to blend the dates into the batter for the pudding sponge. It certainly makes for fantastic treat! Get on the recipe below and find out for yourself!

STICKY + NUTTY TOFFEE PUDDING

175g Chopped Dates
1 Tsp Bicarbonate Of Soda
130g Butter
75g Demerara Sugar
155g Molasses sugar
2 Whole Eggs
175g Self Raising Flour
1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
Pinch Of Salt
150g Chopped Pecans

125ml Double Cream

1. Oven straight on, 180 degrees (160 fan). Doesn't take long to prepare.
   
2. Add the dates into a large bowl with 275ml of boiling water and leave to one side whilst you prepare the sponge.
3. Add the bicarb, 50g butter, demerara, 75g of molasses, eggs, flour, vanilla, salt into a second bowl and give everything a good beating until well combined.
4. Add in the dates with the water and beat again until well combined before blending the batter until all the dates have been blitzed. Fold through the pecans before tipping into a greased baking dish.
5. Place in the oven for 40 minutes on the middle shelf. The top should be firm too the touch. You can do the skewer taste but it shouldn't come out clean, as the name says you want it to be a little sticky inside so if there is a small amount of your skewer when inserted this is a good thing.
   
6. Remove from the oven and set to one side. Turn on your grill to a medium heat.
   
7. Add the double cream, 80g of butter and 80g of molasses into a saucepan and stir on a medium heat until the butter has melted and molasses dissolved. Do this until the mixture just begins to boil and then remove from the heat. This is your toffee sauce.
8. Pour the toffee sauce over the pudding and place under the grill. Grill until the toffee sauce is bubbling and looking mighty fine!

Serve your pudding instantly from under the grill with either your boozy chocolate orange sauce over the top, drizzle with some single cream or whip up some custard for that truly retro pudding vibe.

Whats great too is that you can make the sponge the day before a dinner party. Then on the day of serving you can warm the pud through for five minutes before making the toffee sauce and grilling.

Then go nuts and get stuck in to this delicious pud!