Lockdown dare – sticky date pudding with butterscotch sauce

Sticky Date Pudding photo — Happiness on a plate – sticky date pud.

THIS delish dish should come with a warning. Danger: eating of sticky date pudding with butterscotch sauce can result in total physical immobility.

It does more than fill one up, it stuffs one to the gills. It is a gastronomical delight and wonder.

The first time we made this was decades ago and in the depths of winter. At the first spoonful there were outbreaks of laughter at the sheer calorific excess of the thing, and we spent the rest of the evening in a state of pole-axed completeness and idleness.

This pud should be made when you don’t want to do much more than happily contemplate a spider crawling down a wall close to where you are sitting. It is also possibly best made when you have a heap of wood needed to be chopped the next morning.

What with the current lockdown situation, I reckon there’s no better time for sticky date pudding. Here’s to blissful immobility.

STICKY DATE PUDDING WITH BUTTERSCOTCH SAUCE

11/4 cup pitted dates, chopped

1 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 cups boiling water

60g butter

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 cup self-raising flour, sifted

Preheat oven to 180°C. (Depending on your oven.)
Grease a cake tin (I used a 20cm round casserole dish). Process dates in food processor for two or three minutes and put into a bowl with baking soda and water. Stir, and set aside.
Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, beating well. Stir in flour and date mixture and pour into tin.
Bake 45 -50 minutes, until an inserted skewer or knife comes out clean. In the last five minutes, pour the butterscotch sauce over the pudding, which makes it really sticky. This is a good thing.

Butterscotch Sauce

150g brown sugar

250ml cream

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

1 tbsp butter

Combine all the ingredients in a saucepan, and bring to the boil, stirring constantly. Simmer for five mintues. You have been warned. But golly gosh, it’s worth every bite!