Sticky toffee pudding

Charlotte Rutledge’s sticky toffee pudding makes individual fruit-and-molasses cakes with a rich caramel sauce. King Arthur describes this fig-or-date version as a variation on an English favourite, rather than an American-style pudding.

Figs or dried dates soften in boiling water while butter, brown sugar, salt and baking powder are beaten fluffy. Egg, molasses, vanilla and cake flour are mixed in before the fruit and its soaking water are puréed.

Baking soda is stirred into the fruit purée, which joins the batter. The mixture is divided between buttered baking cups and baked until the cakes spring back when lightly pressed, then cooled in their moulds.

The sauce cooks sugar, butter and salt to a deep amber colour before heavy cream is mixed in. Further cooking makes it thick enough to coat a spoon; the cakes are unmoulded and served with it.

In the linked tutorial, MaryJane Robbins describes warm, soft cakes and warm caramel sauce that soaks into each bite. Rutledge also suggests whipped cream or vanilla ice cream as optional additions to the sauced dessert.