Recipe Box: Sticky Toffee Pudding

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In December last year we put the very British Sticky Toffee Pudding on our menu, and like the previous winter, were bowled over by its popularity. Our recipe has been at the restaurant since its opening, and has been tweaked slightly from the original, and does not, like the traditional version, contain dates. We made a whole new pudding with that idea, one thats even sweeter, if that’s possible, but every bit as good.

I checked out the background on this dessert, and like many other über popular dishes, many claim to have invented it – although most arrows point towards a hotel in the Lake District, called Sharrow Bay. Its their ’signature dish’ and their recipe seems to be such a secret that it has spawned spying efforts of Sachertorte proportions. Currently, only the pastry chef who prepares it has the keys to the safe… Serious stuff. I believe however, that when chefs refuse to share recipes, its rather selfish and stunts their own creativity, and as any cook knows – give five different people the same recipe, and you end up with five different versions of the same dish.

Here’s our recipe, I eventually tired of writing it out on scraps of paper during a busy service! Serve with the toffee sauce below, and good vanilla ice cream. Then have a nap and try not to think of your next gym session…

Sticky Toffee Pudding

100g  treacle

85g     butter

85g    golden syrup

110g  demerara sugar

50g    stem ginger, chopped finely

1         egg

225ml   milk

225g     plain flour

5ml        ground mixed spice

15ml      ground ginger

7,5ml    baking powder

3,5ml    bicarbonate of soda

2,5ml    salt

Grease and line a  40cm baking tin, it should be about 10cm deep to allow for the pudding to rise. Melt the treacle, butter, syrup, sugar and stem ginger together until the sugar is dissolved, remove from heat and cool down slightly.  Mix the egg and milk together and beat into the sugar mixture. Sift all the dry ingredients together and sift onto the sugar mixture whilst whisking to prevent lumps. Pour into baking tin and bake for 40 minutes at 180°C. Insert a skewer in the centre, if it comes out clean the pudding is ready.

For the Toffee Sauce, boil 100g butter, 120g soft brown sugar and 150ml cream together and serve hot with the pudding.

Tallchef

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