What you'll Need
Cakes
8 oz dates (preferably Medjool)
1/2 water
1/2 brandy
1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
1 cup dark brown sugar
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
Toffee Glaze
4 tbsp butter
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 brandy
Pinch of salt
This recipe (and perhaps all recipes for sticky toffee pudding; I've never made it before) uses dates. I have never really eaten dates, let alone used them in cooking so I wasn't sure how I felt about it. Specifically, the recipe said to use Medjool Dates if possible and that was all that my grocery store sold. I did a little research and found out that Medjool Dates are known as the "King of Dates" because they are exceptionally large and pretty sweet in comparison to other dates. As a side note for all those non-date eaters like myself, dates do have pits so you'll need to half them and take out the pit prior to doing anything with them for baking.
The first thing I did was bring the dates (halved and pitted), water, and brandy to a boil. Once at a rolling boil I turned the heat down and let it cook until the dates were soft. I then immediately transferred the mixture to my food processor and pureed it until smooth. A word of advice, DO NOT put your face close to the bowl immediately after taking the lid off the food processor to smell it!! Because of the heat from coming straight off the stove, the fumes smelled so intensely from the brandy i almost choked to death!
While the date mixture was cooling I creamed butter and dark brown sugar in my Kitchen Aid mixer. Speaking of dark brown sugar, today I learned that the difference between brown sugar and dark brown sugar is molasses! If you don't have any dark brown sugar you can just add molasses to your regular brown sugar... In a separate bowl I sifted together flour, baking powder and soda, salt, and cinnamon. Then I added the flour mixture to the butter, alternating with batches of the date mixture.
I did not use cupcake liners in my tin (you'll see why later on) so I made sure to butter and flour the tin instead. Once I spooned the batter into the tin, I baked them at 350 degrees for 24 minutes, rotating halfway through the baking time.
While the cakes were baking I made my toffee glaze which was pretty easy. I melted butter, heavy cream, and brown sugar in a saucepan and brought it to a boil. I then added brandy and a pinch of salt and let it cook for an additional minute. That's it (I told you it was easy)!
Immediately after I took the baked cakes out of the oven i used a toothpick to slightly lift each cake out of the tin and poured a couple spoon fulls of the toffee glaze onto the bottom of the tin then put the cakes back down into place. I allowed them to cool in the tin for about 5 minutes before inverting them onto a cooling rack. By this point the toffee glaze that I had poured onto the bottom was pretty well absorbed into the cake. Never the less it did still drip a little so make sure to lay something down on the counter underneath the cooling rack.
I covered the cakes with tin foil to keep them from drying out until we were ready to eat them (a few hours later). Prior to serving them, I poured the remaining toffee glaze on top of each cake. I also added a spoon full of custard on the side (another British thing that i can't say no to...).
All in all I'd say these were delicious! I don't think I'd change anything about the recipe. My only critique is that I think these were designed to be served immediately after they came out of the oven. I imagine the warmth of the cake would have made the toffee glaze just slightly better. I suppose I could have heated them up in the microwave but I don't think it would have been the same.
Oh well, another cupcake down...
