Recipe: Sticky Date Pudding

Going out to eat is always a fun and interesting thing to do.  I unconsciously like to pick out on human behavior towards food and try to rationalize them.  This post is about a girl's reaction to sticky date pudding.  Whenever I am with girls, their reactions to seeing this dessert on the menu would almost always invoke some sort swooning and I could "see" their hearts fluttering in excitement.   Then they will comment: 

"Oooh!  They have sticky date!" (and that is the dessert that they will order)

"Aiyah, I have to sin again *insert fake sulky face*" (because they will have to order it whenever they see it on the menu)

"Ok, I know what I want! *excited face*" (they will happily select their dessert first, even before looking and selecting a main course)

I cannot understand why those reactions.  I think it is probably because of my bias against toffee / caramel desserts, as they are more often than not too sweet for me and their sticky texture means they will stick to the insides of my molar teeth and I absolutely don't like that when it happens.

Anyway, I got a relatively huge pack of Saudi dried dates as a gift recently and decided to indulge the friends with a home-made version of this popular dessert.  It was surprisingly easy to make and maintained its position as a crowd pleaser at the potluck. 

Here's how you could do it too!

Ingredients (makes 19 cupcake sized puddings)
250 grams pitted dates, chopped
(Note 1:  I intentionally left mine in larger chunks so there would be more bite in the pudding.  
Note 2: if you use darker colored dates, your pudding comes out darker.  Duh, but yes, I need to make that point.  I used lighter colored dates so mine was more toffee colored.)
1 tsp bicarbonate soda
1.5 cups boiling water
125 grams butter (salted), softened
(Note 3: Salted version is optional but I really find that some salt would lift up the taste of the dessert against the sweetness)

1 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
1.75 cups self-raising flour, sifted
(Note 4: I only have plain flour so I added 2.25 tsp of baking powder to my 1.75 cups of plain flour) 

Caramel Sauce
1 cup brown sugar
300 ml thickened cream
0.5 tsp vanilla extract
60 gram butter

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180C.
2. Grease at least 18 muffin / cupcake size tins and set aside.
3. Place dates and bicarbonate soda into a bowl.  Pour in the boiling water and allow the mixture to stand for 20 minutes.  The dates should soften up and disintegrate a little.
4. Using a mixer, beat butter, sugar and vanilla until pale and creamy.  
5. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.
6. Using a large metal spoon, add and fold through the date mixture and flour, alternating between the two, until the mixture is well combined.
7. Spoon mixture into the prepared tins, filling up to 2/3rds of the tin.
8. Bake for about 25 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.  Do not overbake or the pudding will become really dry.
9. While cake is baking, make the caramel sauce.  Put all the ingredients into a saucepan.  On medium heat, cook, stirring often, until the sauce comes to a boil.  
10. Reduce heat and simmer for 2 minutes.  Then turn off and wait for pudding to be done.
11. Once pudding is ready, take out and pierce all over with a skewer.  
12. Spoon, using a teaspoon, about 2-3 tsp of the caramel sauce over the warm pudding (in the tin). 
13. Then remove the cakes from the tins, and place upside down.  Spoon another 1-2 tsp of caramel sauce over the underside.  
14. Serve warm, immediately, with remaining sauce and a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream.
15. I stored my pudding in a tupperware in the fridge.  Same thing for the caramel sauce.  At the potluck, I microwaved the pudding and the sauce separately, for 10-15 secs each, until warm.  To plate, remove a pudding, spoon some sauce over and add ice cream.