Sticky toffee pudding
When this is on the menu in our Field Kitchen restaurant the chefs are hounded for the recipe. It's hands down the most popular dessert we serve. It takes a little while to steam, making it an ideal ending to a slow Sunday lunch. You can substitute some of the apricots for dates for an even sweeter, moister finish. Eat with lashings of double cream, or crème fraîche if you'd like something sharper.
Ingredients
- 215g dark muscovado sugar
- 115g butter
- 6 tbsp double cream
- 175g dried apricots, very finely chopped
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 300ml boiling water
- 50g butter
- 100g caster sugar
- 50g vanilla sugar
- 1 egg, beaten
- 225g flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
Method
-
Step 1
Place the muscovado sugar, butter and double cream in a small pan and stir over a gentle heat until the butter has melted and sugar dissolved.
-
Step 2
Bring to the boil and simmer for 3 minutes. Pour into two buttered 900ml pudding basins.
-
Step 3
Place the apricots in a bowl with the bicarbonate of soda and pour boiling water over them. Leave to cool thoroughly.
-
Step 4
Cream the butter in a bowl with the caster and vanilla sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg.
-
Step 5
Sift the flour with the baking powder and fold in. Stir the apricot mixture into the batter and divide between two pudding basins.
-
Step 6
Cover each basin with foil and secure tightly with string, leaving long ends. Knot these to make a handle across the basin so that it can easily be lifted out of the steamer.
-
Step 7
Place the bowls on trivets in a large pan and surround with enough hot water to come halfway up.
-
Step 8
Cover and steam for 1½ hours. Check every 20 minutes or so that the pan has not boiled dry and keep topping up with boiling water.
-
Step 9
Lift out of the water and turn puddings out on to a warmed serving dish.
