Sticky Toffee Pudding Traybake

Who doesn’t adore sticky toffee pudding?? It’s one of the best british classics I can think of. This pudding can be served warm with ice cream or single cream, or cold as a cake. You could even jazz it up with some buttercream and turn it into a fab birthday cake!

Makes 1 20x20cm cake

Ingredients:

For the cake:

• 25g butter (softened) or margarine
• 85g light brown soft sugar
• 1 tbsp golden syrup
• 1 egg
• 100g self-raising flour
• 100g pitted dates, roughly chopped
• 145ml weak black tea (hot)
• ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• ½ tsp vanilla extract

For the sauce:

• 55ml double cream
• 25g butter
• 25g light brown soft sugar
• 2 tbsp golden syrup

Method:

1. Preheat  your oven to 200c/180c fan/ gas mark 6. Grease and line a 20cm square cake tin with greaseproof paper.

2. Cream together the butter/margarine and brown sugar with a wooden spoon until light and fluffy, and no obvious brown speckles of sugar can be seen.

3. Beat in the golden syrup and egg with one tablespoon of the flour.

4. Sift the remainder of the flour into the bowl and fold in (until no more flour can be seen).

5. Meanwhile blend the dates with the tea in a food processor. Add the vanilla extract and bicarbonate of soda to the dates and mix.

6. Add the date mixture to the pudding batter, and fold in. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 20-25 minutes, until well risen, golden brown, and springy to the touch.

7. Whilst the pudding is baking, make the sauce. In a medium pan add the cream, butter, brown sugar and golden syrup. Heat gently, stirring constantly, until the butter has melted.

8. Boil for a couple of minutes, then take off the heat and wait until the pudding has baked.

9. Once the pudding it out of the oven,  use a fork or skewer to poke holes over the top of the cake. Pour over the toffee sauce evenly (if this has thickened upon cooling, heat for a minute in the pan to loosen in).

10. If serving warm, wait 5-10 minutes before taking out of the tin, slicing, and serving with ice cream or single cream.

11.Enjoy.