Week 34: Sticky Toffee Pudding

Sticky Toffee Pudding

We have yet another traditional British dessert this week. We saw this once on The Great British Baking Show and Aubrey wanted to make it ever since. Of all the British desserts we have made, we have learned that this might be the most common dessert in England. Now, if you aren’t familiar with the British use of the word “pudding” you might expect this to be a toffee flavored custard. It isn’t! In England, pudding is more of a generic term for dessert. Not only is this NOT a pudding in the American sense, but it doesn’t scream “toffee” either!

If I were to name this dessert, it would be caramel date bread or caramel date cake…even though it doesn’t taste like the dates used to make it.

We used the Cook’s Illustrated Baking cook book for this recipe. We substituted half Swerve brown sugar for the sugar in the pudding (full sugar for sauce) and used white whole wheat for the flour.

Ingredients

Pudding Cakes

• 8 ounces pitted dates, cut crosswise into ¼ inch thick slices (1⅓ cups)
• ¾ cup warm water (110 degrees)
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• 1¼ cups (6 ¼ ounces) all-purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¾ cup packed (5¼ ounces) brown sugar, light or dark
• 2 large eggs
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 1 ½ tablespoons vanilla extract

Toffee Sauce

• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1 cup packed (7 ounces) brown sugar
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 tablespoon rum
• ¼ teaspoon lemon juice

Directions

1. FOR THE PUDDING CAKES: Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour eight 6-ounce ramekins. Fold dish towel in half and place in bottom of large roasting pan. Place prepared ramekins on top of towel; set aside pan. Bring kettle of water to boil.
2. Combine half of dates, warm water, and baking soda in 2-cup liquid measuring cup (dates should be submerged beneath water); soak dates for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, whisk flour, baking powder, and salt together in large bowl.
3. Process sugar and remaining dates in food processor until no large chunks remain and mixture has texture of damp, coarse sand, about 45 seconds, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Drain soaked dates and add soaking liquid to processor. Add eggs, melted butter, and vanilla and process until smooth, about 15 seconds. Transfer sugar mixture to bowl with flour mixture and sprinkle soaked dates on top. Using rubber spatula or wooden spoon, gently fold sugar mixture into flour mixture until just combined and date pieces are evenly dispersed.
4. Divide batter evenly among prepared ramekins (ramekins should be two-thirds full). Quickly pour enough boiling water into roasting pan to come ¼ inch up sides of ramekins. Cover pan tightly with aluminum foil, crimping edges to seal. Bake until cakes are puffed and surfaces are spongy, firm, and moist to touch, about 40 minutes. Immediately transfer ramekins from water bath to wire rack and let cool for 10 minutes.
5. FOR THE TOFFEE SAUCE: While cakes cool, melt butter with water in medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Whisk in sugar and salt until smooth. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until sugar is dissolved and slightly darkened, 3 to 4 minutes. Stir in ⅓ cup cream until smooth, about 30 seconds. Slowly pour in rum and remaining 2/3 cup cream, whisking constantly until smooth. Reduce heat to low; simmer until frothy, 3 to 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in lemon juice.
6. Using toothpick, poke 25 holes in top of each cake and spoon 1 tablespoon toffee sauce over each cake. Let cakes sit until sauce is absorbed, about 5 minutes. Invert each ramekin onto plate or shallow bowl; lift off ramekin. Divide remaining toffee sauce evenly among cakes and serve immediately.

Our Experience

The first step of these was to chop the dates before putting them in the food processor (By the way, my food processor of 30 years kicked the bucket a few weeks ago, so I got a new one and upgraded! My Keurig and blender died too so, it was a small appliance purchasing flurry at my house in August.) I almost put all of these in the processor but Aubrey stopped me and told me to read the recipe. Turns out, I was only supposed to process half of the dates and soak the others half.

Once all of the ingredients were measured/prepared, it was all dumped together just like a quick bread. (Which is what I would consider this if it weren’t cooked differently…maybe it still is??)

We didn’t have enough of the white ramekins but have a couple of others that are virtually the same size so we used them too.

This recipe used a bain marie (which we perfected earlier this year with the equipment we have on hand) as well as using the steam in order to cook them.

Once the ramekins were placed in the pans and the boiling water was added, we covered the pans tightly with foil to allow for the steam to help cook them.

When we took the foil off, it had stuck to some of the puddings. We hadn’t expected them to rise that much. We were supposed to make the toffee sauce while the puddings were cooling and we tried….twice!! In the end, we ran out of brown sugar and reverted to a caramel sauce that we had made a few weeks earlier. Once again, caramel got the best of us! Apparently, caramel is our nemesis! I don’t think they would have tasted much different had the sauce turned out since the ingredients were very similar.

The caramel sauce didn’t soak in much. We weren’t sure if that was because it was thicker than the toffee sauce would have been or if we had waited too long and the cakes weren’t hot anymore.

What we liked.

This dessert got a 5 out of 5 because it was so moist and flavorful. Again, it really didn’t taste like dates except when you got a bite of one of the date chunks. Garrett said it tasted like waffles and I thought he was crazy. Then, Kip said he tasted waffles too. Hmmm, I still didn’t get that but I guess some people did.

It is difficult to nail down what it did taste like. I could taste vanilla, brown sugar, and caramel and, of course, the dates but not really. It is the only quick bread dessert we have made that was steamed so it didn’t have a crispy top and that didn’t bother me because most quick breads only have a crispy top on the first day. They were really good while they were still warm so we made sure the leftovers were reheated in the microwave. I think a bit of ice cream would have been an excellent addition.

What we would change.

I read several other recipes which are a dime a dozen because it is like the national dessert of England. Many of those recipes had easier to make toffee sauces and I think we would try one of those if we were to make these again. None of us loved the date chunks (I really like dates too) so I think it would just be easier to process all of the dates and call it good. Other than those changes, I don’t think there are any other changes that this dessert needs. I suppose that if you like a crisp top, you could choose not to steam them.

What we learned.

I would like to say we definitively learned how to make a toffee sauce without a failure, but that would be a lie. We did learn how NOT to make one (actually two 😉 ). We got to try our hand at a steamed pudding and wouldn’t shy away from doing them again.

Until next week, Happy Baking!