A friend told me about this recipe. She makes it gluten-free. You’ll need a 23 cm square baking dish. This should serve nine people. Serve with additional cream, or ice-cream, or clotted cream…
INGREDIENTS:
For the sponge:
- 200g dried dates, chopped
- 200ml freshly boiled water
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 75g unsalted butter
- 2 tbsp black treacle
- 50g dark muscovado sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 150g plain flour (gluten free if you wish)
- 2 tsp baking powder
For the sauce:
- 150g unsalted butter at room temp, soft
- 300g dark muscovado sugar
- 1 tbsp black treacle
- 200ml double cream
METHOD:
- Heat the oven to 180C
- Grease the dish
- Make the sponge first. Put the chopped dates, boiling water and bicarbonate of soda in a bowl, stir and leave to stand for 10 minutes
- Cream the butter and treacle together, then beat in the sugar. You could use a food mixer for this.
- Beat in the eggs slowly a bit at a time, then gently mix in the flour and baking powder to make a smooth cake mixture.
- Gently stir the dates, and then pour the whole lot, water and all, into the batter and gently mix in.
- Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 35 minutes.
- MEANWHILE make the sauce. Melt the butter sugar and treacle over a very low heat in a heavy pan.
- Once the butter is melted, stir gently until everything is melted, then stir in the cream and turn up the heat until it is bubbling hot.
- As soon as the sponge is out of the oven, stab it with a knitting needle and pour about a quarter of the warm sauce over the pudding until the whole thing is covered with a sticky glaze
- Leave the pudding to stand. Then take it to the table, warm but no longer dangerously hot. Serve with the sauce in a jug, and with cream or ice-cream.