Sticky Toffee Pudding

While all desserts are commonly referred to as "puddings" in England, this is actually not a pudding as we know it, but more of a cake. It is indeed sticky though, especially with the molasses infused toffee sauce. And, what English dessert (I mean pudding) would be complete without the addition of some type of sauce, be it custard, toffee, caramel or cream!? I've ordered this dessert at a restaurant in England and was interested to try making it myself. On a recent visit to my mum, I made this for her and we both thoroughly enjoyed it.

The other sticky ingredient in this dessert are the dates. The first step was to take the pitted dates and boil them with some water and baking soda to soften them. They were added in with the other ingredients as the basis for the cake batter.

The recipe I used, indicated baking one large cake in a mold, but I have this pan with the cute individual bundt cakes and decided to try that. It worked quite well, but I probably could have put just a little less batter in each one.

They baked perfectly though and came out of the pan just right (thanks to Pam Baking spray). I made the toffee sauce with dark brown sugar, molasses and heavy cream. It turned out very good, but I would probably try corn syrup or something else instead of molasses next time as with the high molasses content of the dark brown sugar it had a stronger flavour. I drizzled (and eventually poured) the sauce on top of the pretty little cakes to let them soak in the creamy sauce - sticky goodness!

Monkey Bread or Plucketts?

Many people commonly know this breakfast/dessert as monkey bread, including my husbands' family. However, we grew up calling it plucketts as you "pluck" the pieces of bread to eat. I have to admit that I've never actually made it myself, but I have assisted my mum in making it many times. It's essentially dough, butter, brown sugar and cinnamon that are mixed all together and pressed into a bundt pan. I've seen cooking stores selling "monkey bread pans," but a bundt pan works just fine and gives it a nice shape. Mum always put walnuts in the bottom of the bundt pan so when you turned it out after baking it would be adorned with sugary walnuts. Mum brought this over the day after Christmas for all of us to enjoy while we were prepping for lunch that day.

Plucketts were one of those treats we had on a weekend growing up, like having homemade cinnamon rolls every once in a while. In fact, mum and I took at cinnamon roll class at Meijer Gardens recently, but they were gone before I could snap any photos to share.

Did your family have a tradition of making this and what did you call it?