Sticky Toffee and Orange Pudding

This week has passed in a M25/ A40/ Back streets of hell kinda blur and its only Thursday! I am typing this after 250 un-glorious miles since Monday entirely considering getting a dash-cam, as living out in the sticks I had become amused by the odd bad bout of Surrey drivers but oh my gosh the stuff these past few days has left me shaken and entirely grateful I had picked up a bottle of red in the weekly shop, if only to soothe my fried nerves upon flopping onto the sofa home! Hopefully tomorrow will be the end of this joyous saga...

Anyway I have squeezed in a little blogging and tonight with consent I give to you my Sticky Toffee and Orange Pudding! Quite amazingly up until Christmas just past I had never baked Sticky toffee pudding, and I am now a convert! I had originally made a rather delicious and rich Sticky Toffee Pudding from a fellow lovely blogger Sue over at Mainly Baking for our works Christmas party (and kindly gave me permission to re-produce here), and it was super popular but a few weeks later, a few odd things lying around post Christmas and the creative brain cells kicked in and I tweaked the recipe into a Sticky Toffee Orange Pudding, and I must admit it is glorious and the little bit of orange just lifts it into something heavenly! It is not at all diet friendly and never will be but you can eat in moderation. It is not for those lacking a sweet tooth!

The dates as always are bought from a late night grocery kinda place near my dad, Turkish owned. They are gorgeously gooey, almost toffee like on their own. Sue recommends blending the fruit mixture but I skip this stage as they go all lovely and smoodgy on their own. If you have regular dates and it doesn't look puree like then by all means blitz them.

Our ovens thermometer is still slacking but I guess approx. 180/160 fan in a working oven!

Makes one brownie sized tray - 8x8inch ish.

Ingredients:

175g dates, stoned and chopped - buy the best you can!
50g Dried mixed fruit - including mixed peel
1/2 juice of one orange
175g ml boiling water
1 teabag
100ml milk
2 tbsp black treacle
175g self raising flour
140g light muscavado sugar
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 medium eggs, beaten
85g butter

Sauce:
175g light muscavado sugar
50g butter
225ml double cream
1 tbsp. black treacle
1/2 orange juice
1 tbsp. orange zest

Zest a 2 inch piece of the orange and put to one side - before you cut in half! Add half the juice to the dried fruit mixture below.

Place the stoned, chopped dates, mixed fruit and teabag in a bowl. Pour over the boiling water and steep for ten minutes, discard the teabag.

Pre-heat oven to 180o.

Grease a 8 inch square tin (I swear by Dr Oetker Cake Release!)

Instructions based on a stand mixer:
Cream together the butter and sugar in the mixer. Sift the flour and bicarb together. Add a little egg to the butter sugar mix, then a little of the flour mix, repeat in two more stages. Beat in the milk last, then fold in the prepared fruit mixture.

Pour the batter into the prepared tin and level. Bake in the middle for 35-40 minutes or until it springs back to touch and a skewer removes clean.

Meanwhile make the sauce -

Heat in a medium saucepan the butter, sugar and half of the cream until nicely mixed and the sugars dissolved, when boiling add the treacle and remaining orange juice and gently bubble for about 4-5 minutes or until starting to thicken, remove from the heat and stir in the cream.

Oh to bathe in sauce!

When the cake is cooked, stab the surface with a skewer and gently pour over a little sauce too fill the holes, allowing it to sink in until you have used just under half. Keep the rest to serve with the pudding and allow to rest for at least 15 minutes before eating, with more sauce!! Sprinkle over the reserved zest.

Eating time!!

It is undeniably rich, and sweet but has everything a good baked pudding needs! You could easily add a swirl of custard or scoop of vanilla ice cream too accompany this and the sauce alone is worth making, the gentle orange hint makes it fabulous!

As my pudding used up a leftover Christmas orange (from making red cabbage - we don't eat oranges), a long neglected tin of treacle and a carton of just-gone-by-due-by-date cream donated by a bemused friend I am sending this over to Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary No Waste Food Challenge, one that I firmly believe in too - I hate waste and always get upset even over tiny amounts of food!

Many thanks again to Sue for letting me play around with her lovely recipe and I hope you like my version of it too!!