Preheat your oven to 170C/160C fan/gas mark 4
For the Pudding:
- Chop the dates finely and place into a bowl and steep in the boiling water. Place to one side whilst you work on the rest of the mixture.
- In a mixing bowl, add all the dry pudding ingredients together and stir. Melt the butter and add along with the eggs and treacle. Mix by hand, or use a low setting on a mixer.
- When the mix looks slightly curdled, add the double cream and fold by hand. It should resemble batter mix at this stage, remember it isn’t a cake mix and doesn’t need lots of air added.
- Mash the now softened dates into the water and add to the other mixture. Again fold in by hand, it may look curdled, but it’s fine.
- Grease your baking tins and pour the mixture in.
- Bake for 25-30 mins, until the pudding is cooked. Leave to cool slightly.
For the Toffee Sauce:
- In a thick bottomed pan, add the sugar and butter with around 3/4 of the cream, then slowly bring to the boil, stirring constantly.
- When the sugar has dissolved, add the treacle and bring to the boil, letting it bubble for a minute.
- Remove from the heat and beat in the remaining cream. Your mix will be a gorgeous toffee colour, and look lovely and glossy.
Combining the Pudding and Sauce:
- Using a knife or spatula, slide the cakes out of the tins. Don’t worry if it doesn’t look perfect, the toffee sauce is going on top and will hide any imperfections!
- Pour a little toffee sauce into your tins, replace your pudding and drizzle more sauce on top. Reserve around a third of the sauce for serving.
Top Tip: For an even stickier and gooier pudding leave the pudding overnight to soak up the toffee sauce.
Scottish Mum is packed with more great family recipes.
