Sit down.
Sit down.
Would you like a nice cuppa?
I'll be mother.
Milk or Lemon?
In honour of the delightful Bakerina's trip to lovely Scotland and other places across the pond, I thought I might offer up a favourite recipe of my beloved who came from the North of England 7 years ago yesterday to marry me here in a beautiful 14th century castle. Our honeymoon took us further north to Scotland and through Edinburgh, Glasgow and eventually over to see my 'family's' castle ruins. The MacLachlans lived in the parish of Strathlachlan in Argyllshire and all along the way we had to hop on ferries and drive along winding roads with lochs on both sides. A most beautiful, romantic way to spend some time. I can't tell you how happy this raised in the 70's girl was to actually throw in my Wings CD as we were awaiting a ferry on the Mull of Kintyre.
In honour of our anniversary I made husband one of his favourites sweets this weekend. It is called Sticky Toffee Pudding. And let me tell you, if you think that means it is heavy and leaden you would be so wrong. Sticky Toffee is a steamed pudding done in a pudding mold and it is light and filled with chunks of dates, rather like a nice date bread on steroids. Shall we have some with our tea?
You begin by pouring boiling water over 6 ozs. of pitted, roughly chopped dates. Not a lot of water! Just enough to cover them. Now, put those aside to cool.
Butter the inside of your pudding mold generously and cut a piece of parchment paper to close in the lid. Take a pan larger by height and by width of your pudding mold and fill it with enough water to submerge the mold about 3/4 of the way up its sides. Now, put that on a burner to heat up.
In a saucepan, toss in 4oz. unsalted butter, 8 oz. of dark brown sugar (muscovado if you can find it), add 1/4 pint of heavy cream and 1 tsp of lemon juice (zest the lemon first, you will need it later).
Let this all melt and get gooey.
Get out your mixer and cream 3 oz. of unsalted butter and 4 oz. of sugar and then add that lemon zest you saved. Break two eggs (large please, we are baking here) into a small bowl and while beating, plop them in one at a time until they are nicely incorporated. Don't worry if it curdles!
Now, measure out 6 ozs. of self-raising flour, sift it with 1/2 tsp of baking soda. Mix about half of this flour and baking soda in to the butter/sugar and eggs along with those dates you soaked and their soaking liquid. Plop! Right in. Easy isn't it? Mix in the rest of your flour until it looks a bit like a muffin batter.
Bring that pudding mold back over, pour half of that lovely, syrup you made into the bottom. Pour your batter on top of that. Put the parchment paper on top and clip the lid to your mold on.
Place this in your pot of water which should be gently simmering by now. This pudding will cook for 2 and 1/2 hours. All you need to do is top up the water occasionally.
When the time has elapsed, get a nice plate, pull the mold out of the water and let it sit, oh say 3 - 5 minutes. Clip off the lid, take off the parchment and put your plate on top of the mold Breathe deep, hold your breath and FLIP! Take a butter knife and tap the top and sides once or twice for good luck and to ensure it has turned out and reveal your lovely pudding.
If the gods of baking were kind, it should look like this.
When you are ready, you can slice it and maybe drizzle a bit more of the syrup and some heavy cream on top.
It makes a British boy happy it does.