Luscious, sticky heaven in a bowl

We had friends over for dinner recently, so I thought I'd make something I haven't done in ages...a Sticky Date Pudding...and it turned out rather well.

I'm not one to stick religiously to a recipe, so I hunted out a couple of them and combined them to see how it went. I checked out my Donna Hay Mags as well as Taste.com. Donna Hay has a Sticky Date Pudding in it this month and the Taste website also has a number of recipes for the pudding....so....

Here's what I did.

Combined 250 grams of chopped pitted dates in a bowl with a teaspoon of bi-carb of soda and a cup of hot water. Let it stand for about 15 minutes, then blended it in a food processor

Added 100 grams of chopped butter and 1/2 cup of brown sugar and gave it a whizz, then put in two eggs and gently processed it

Poured it all into a large bowl and added 1 cup of Self Raising flour and gently mixed it all together.

I used a 20cmx20cm cake tin lined with baking paper and put it in a 180 degree oven for about 30 minutes. When it came out of the oven it was as light as a feather.

To make the caramel sauce...

I put 150 grams of butter, 1 cup of cream and 1 cup of brown sugar in a small saucepan and brought it to the boil...then let it simmer for a minute.

I put the cooled cake onto a plate and pierced the top with a skewer, then spooned some of the sauce over the top...the rest of the sauce was put into a jug and served it with the pudding.

That's it! It was so easy and absolutely delish!

What I am going to have to do though is get me one of these babies!

DROOL!

The KitchenAid Food Processor is magnificent!

I bought myself one of their stand mixers last year and it's been fantastic! Time to upgrade my old processor methinks