sticky date pudding with butterscotch sauce

winter comes along and I crave for sticky date

I find it really hard to hunt for a good pudding. 

some will be to floury or too dense that half way through your slice, it gets overwhelmingly rich.

My mum flew over the other day with a kilo (yes! 1 KILO!) of dates. 

I have been telling her on the phone that I needed some dates- having the dates here in Melb are dry and not as juicy as the one we have at home. Little did I know that she had hauled in 1 kilo of dates for me. So now, I have dates all over my fridge. :(

So here it is, a slight adaptation. I have reduced the sugar slightly. 

Sticky date pudding

270g (1 1/2 cups) deseeded dried dates
312ml (1 1/4 cups) water
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
60g (1/4 cup) butter, roughly chopped (we use salted butter)
2 large eggs (we use eggs with a minimum weight of 59g)
1 teaspoon (5ml) vanilla extract
188g (1 1/4 cups) self-raising flour
150g (2/3 cup, firmly packed) brown sugar

Butterscotch Sauce
180g (3/4 cup plus 2 teaspoons, firmly packed) brown sugar
300ml (1 cup plus 2 1/2 tablespoons) cream (35 to 40 percent fat)
25ml (1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon) golden syrup
25g (1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon) butter (we use salted butter)

Place dates and water in a small saucepan over high heat. When the mixture starts to boil, add bicarbonate of soda and 60g butter, and remove from the heat. Stir and then set aside for 25 minutes (the butter will melt during this time).

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (160 Celsius fan-forced). If you are not using a fan-forced oven, adjust the oven rack to the lower half of the oven so the top of the pudding will be in the centre of the oven.

Grease a 20cm diameter (top inside measurement) round springform pan and line the base and side with baking paper.

Place cooled date mixture in a food processor. Pulse mixture a few times to form a chunky paste.

Add eggs and vanilla to date mixture and pulse a couple of times until just combined.

Stir flour and 150g (2/3 cup, firmly packed) brown sugar together in a medium bowl. Use the back of the spoon to break up any lumps of brown sugar. Add date mixture to the flour mixture and gently fold the ingredients together until just combined.

Pour batter into prepared pan.

If, when baking, the pudding starts to overbrown, loosely cover it with greaseproof paper.

Begin making the sauce (see instructions below) about 10 minutes before the pudding has finished baking.

Bake the pudding for about 50-60 minutes, or until it springs back when lightly pressed in the centre. A thin-bladed knife or wooden skewer inserted into the centre of the pudding should come out without any batter attached.

Leave pudding in the pan and allow it to cool for 10 minutes on a wire rack. Using a skewer, pierce several deep holes in the pudding. Pour about 125ml (1/2 cup) of the hot butterscotch sauce over the pudding. Allow to stand for 5 minutes before removing from the pan.

Reheat sauce if necessary. Serve pudding with hot butterscotch sauce and vanilla ice cream.

Store leftover pudding and sauce in the refrigerator or freezer (we freeze the sauce separately). Suitable to reheat.

Butterscotch Sauce

Place sauce ingredients in a small saucepan. Stir mixture over medium to medium-high heat until the mixture comes to the simmer. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Remove sauce from heat and set aside until required.