I haven’t visited Lancaster in a very very long time. When I was in Grad School in London my cousin had just moved to Lancaster after getting married, I was making plans to visit Lake District not having any idea how close it was to Lancaster. Of course my cousin was most upset with me and I had to make sure the Lake District trip included a stop in Lancaster. I have very fond memories of the trip, my cousin had just moved to Lancaster 3 months ago and when I landed there she had no clue about the city so she and I went about discovering the place with her selling point being the Lancaster Prison – Seriously!!! Regardless, it’s a beautiful small city in the North of England and I wouldn’t go out of my way to go there, but given it was next to Lake District I didn’t mind stopping by.
My trip to Lake District was gorgeous, the lake, the mountains, the sheep it was all so serene. Just the place I needed to be once I’d completed my thesis. I loved it so much, that when I got married and visited London again I took my husband with me to Lake District and went through the whole experience all over again.
And of course, how could I have visited Lake District and not had the Sticky Toffee Date Pudding, where it all started. I have no idea what the name of the Cafe was where I had my last authentic date pudding but I can still smell the warm sticky pudding melting the clotted cream and my impatient self diving straight into it to devour as much as possible. It really is a gorgeously put dessert which really tinkers your taste buds.
So when I had guests coming over originally from London, I thought it’d be nice to give them a treat from their homeland while they’ve been away so long. These turned out exactly how I wanted them and this is no recipe of mine. I used the recipe from the creator of this great dessert and made no changes whatsoever, I wanted to be as authentic as possible. So here’s to Mr. Coulson and thanking him for introducing the world to this lovely dessert.
Ingredients
4 Tbsp butter
3/4 Cup Sugar
1 1/2 Cup plus 2 teaspoon flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 egg, beaten
1 1/4 cup pitted dates
1 tsp vanilla extract
Toffee Sauce
This is the only part of the recipe where I’ve used my own sauce instead of the original.
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350 C
- Combine butter and sugar (I used a whisk instead of an electric mixer). Beat for a few minutes until fluffy and then add the egg and mix
- In a seperate bowl mix flour and baking powder and then add half the flour mixture into the sugar mixture
- Mix together and then add the remaining flour and combine with a spatula
- Chop the dates finely and add the remaining 2 tsp of flour and coat and cover with 1 Cup boiling water so they can soften, add baking soda and vanilla and then add the softened dates to the batter
- Grease 4 ramekins with butter and pour the batter into the ramekins to the top
- Bake for 20-25 mins or until the skewer comes clean
- Remove from the oven and keep warm
- Set oven to grill/broiler, take the puddings out of the ramkeins and top the warm puddings with toffee sauce, about a teaspoon heaped and let it bubble and take out
- Serve immediately with more toffee sauce and vanilla ice cream or clotted cream
