A Prize Pudding — Sticky and Sweet

In a col­umn about famous and infa­mous recipe mis­takes that I wrote for the Toronto Star in 2008, I con­fessed to not being happy with the Sticky Tof­fee Pud­ding in my lat­est book: Dish. Here is the amaz­ing ver­sion I came up with after that con­fes­sion, with help from top Toronto pas­try chef and good friend Joanne Yolles. It is def­i­nitely a winner.

Sticky Tof­fee Pudding

The tricks to this are using Med­jool dates (pricey but worth it) and pour­ing the hot tof­fee sauce over the still-warm cake.

1 cup water
3 tbsp strong cof­fee
1 tbsp brandy, scotch or rum
1 cup coarsely chopped pit­ted Med­jool dates
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp bak­ing soda
1 tsp bak­ing pow­der
¼ tsp ground cin­na­mon
Pinch of salt
½ cup packed dark brown sugar
¼ cup but­ter, at room tem­per­a­ture
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla

Tof­fee sauce:
³⁄₄ cup packed dark brown sugar
6 tbsp but­ter, at room tem­per­a­ture
³⁄₄ cup 35% whip­ping cream

Pre­heat oven to 350F. Grease 8-inch/2 L square bak­ing pan and line bot­tom with parch­ment paper.
In small saucepan, bring water, cof­fee and brandy to boil. Add dates; stir well. Remove from heat.
In small bowl, com­bine flour, bak­ing soda, bak­ing pow­der, cin­na­mon and salt.
In elec­tric mixer, cream sugar and but­ter until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla.
In small food proces­sor, pulse dates with their liq­uid briefly just until chunky, not smooth.
Beat or stir flour mix­ture into sugar/butter mix­ture alter­nately with date mix­ture, begin­ning and end­ing with flour until bat­ter is thick and smooth. Pour into pre­pared pan; smooth top with knife.
Bake in oven 30 to 35 min­utes or until browned, springy to touch and tester comes out clean.
Mean­while, make Tof­fee Sauce. In saucepan, cook sugar, but­ter and cream over low heat until slightly thick­ened and brown, a few min­utes.
While hot, poke holes in top of pud­ding with skewer. Slowly pour over about two-thirds of Tof­fee Sauce; reserve remain­der to serve with pud­ding.
Serve pud­ding warm with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream or crème fraiche and reserved warmed sauce.
Makes about 8 servings.