April '10 DB Challenge, Sticky Toffee Pudding
Tuesday, April 27, 2010 at 10:17AM 
Warm sticky toffee pudding with whipped cream
The April 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet.
Our hostess this month came up with something really interesting as a challenge, steamed or boiled pudding. I've steamed many things, but never a pie or cake, so this was definitely something new and different for me.
I made a Beef & Guinness pudding to try out the suet crust that was also part of the challenge as well as to do something savoury for a change, but also wanted to make something sweet. A friend of mine lent me an old cookbook crammed with traditional recipes, including steamed puddings.
I was all set on making a toffee apple pudding but then changed my mind about five minutes before going out to buy ingredients for two reasons. 1) I wanted to try a sponge pudding as I'd already be doing a pudding with a crust. 2) I remembered how much I LOOOOOVE sticky toffee pudding!
Batter ready to be steamed
After sifting through recipes for baked versions, I found a couple of steamed recipes, so I was set. The only other thing was that every single recipe included dates, either pureed or in little chunks.
Now, I may be wrong about this, but I don't ever recall having a sticky toffee pudding in South Africa that included dates. Maybe they did but never included it in the description of the pudding on the front of the packaging, or they just didn't include dates. Possibly if I'd read the list of ingredients on the back I would have seen it included.
Sponge almost double in size after steaming, yum!
In any case, I avoid buying sticky toffee pudding here in Ireland because it always says something like "Sticky Toffee pudding with Currants/Raisins/Dates/Sultanas". I have nothing against any of those things, I just don't like little chewy bits in my sticky toffee pudding. For me it's a moist sponge soaked in a lovely rich toffee sauce.
And so, I left out the dates from my sticky toffee pudding! Might explain why it's a bit light in colour...
I was very surprised at the way the sponge came out, it was moist and dense, absolutely lovely! The only thing I would do differently is to use a skewer to poke the sponge in a few places before pouring the sauce over so that it absorbs more. Otherwise, I'd definitely make it again, and steamed at that!
Sponge Ingredients:
45g Butter or Margarine, room temperature
45g Light Brown Sugar
100ml Water
180g Self Raising Flour
1tsp Vanilla Extract
1 Egg
Sauce Ingredients:
15g Butter
60g Brown Sugar
65ml Double Cream
Method:
- Grease 4x 250ml ramekins or dariole moulds
- or
- Grease a 1l pudding bowl
- Cream the butter or margarine and sugar
- Gradually beat the egg in
- Add the water and vanilla and beat until combined
- Stir in the flour until thoroughly combined
- Pour batter into the ramekins or pudding bowl
- Cover ramekins or pudding bowl well with tin foil
- Tip: Make sure to put a pleat in the foil so allow for the sponge to rise
- Steam ramekins for 30-45mins
- or
- Steam pudding bowl for 1hour 30mins
- About 10mins before the pudding is done, prepare the sauce
- Put the cream, butter and sugar in a pot over low heat
- Cook until the sugar has melted and it darkens and becomes thick
- Serve:
- Serve in ramekins with sauce and a dollop of whipped cream
- Tip: Use a skewer and poke the sponge in a few places so that the pudding absorbs some of the sauce
- Serve out of ramekins with sauce spooned over and a dollop of whipped cream
- Tip: To release from ramekin or mould, slide a knife around the the edge and invert onto a plate
- Serve from the pudding bowl at the table by spooning the pudding out at the table and pouring the sauce over, again, with a dollop of whipped cream
Recipe adapted from The Pudding Club and Big Oven
Thank you Esther for this interesting challenge! Making my own sticky toffee pudding is dangerous but I'm not complaining :)
Daring Baker, Pudding, Steamed, Sticky Toffee in Daring Baker, Steamed, Sweet 
Reader Comments (10)
Those look great! I love the cute little ramekins that you used to make the individual servings. Nice job on the challenge!
That's gorgeous! I've never seen a sticky toffee pudding without dates, and it just never occurred to me to make it that way. I'm not that fond of the dried fruit in mine either, so this is a perfect recipe for me and my family. Thanks!
Wow it looks so light and moist and I bet was excellent and yes sticky toffee usually has dates in it (in Australia it is called sticky date pudding) they look so lovely. Well done on this challenge. Cheers from Audax from Sydney in Australia.
They look great- I haven't had sticky toffee pudding in ages!!!
I love your pudding of sticky toffee apples!! The pictures are so AWESOME!! :)
Beautiful "puds"! :)
I made sticky toffee pudding too but with the dates as we love dates. I know I'm going to be making it often!
Mands, this looks spectacular, ooey and gooey perfection. If I wasn't sick, I would read through your post. My eyes are blurry due to head spin! However, I had a goood laugh at Andrew pushing away the savory pudding due to the crust lol Beautifully done as always, my long distance pal :)
Gorgeous! I love being able to make my own things to be able to leave out ingredients I don't like! :)
it looks gorgeous and i'd really like to try making it at home, but i'm only beginning as a baker, and i have to ask, how do you steam the pudding?
It depends on the equipment you have available for steaming. If you have any sort of steamer large enough for your pudding bowl or ramekins, steam as you would normally steam other things like vegetables. (Bottom of the steamer is where the water goes, then above that, not touching the water, is where the item you want steamed)
If you don't have a functioning steamer as such, you could make your own one. I just used a large pot and placed small ramekins on the bottom, those were the platform for my pudding bowls. Basically, you just want to keep the pudding bowls from touching the water, so anything heat resistant that you can put in the pot and into the water to make a higher platform will be fine.
Once you have that sorted out, make sure your pudding bowl/ramekins are nicely sealed with foil and then put the lid on the pot and simmer away for as long as the recipe states. If you are using a pot and not an intended steamer pot/device, then you may need to top up the water at some point depending on how much water you were able to put in the pot and not touch the pudding bowl.
I hope this makes sense!