Sticky Toffee Cake

When we discussed what dessert to make for a holiday dinner we were hosting for a few friends, sticky toffee pudding came to mind.  I found this New York Times recipe for Sticky Toffee Whole-Wheat Date Cake.  It has whole wheat flour in it, so it's good for you too, right?

I made fun individual sticky tofee puddings a few years back that were so amazingly good and this was even easier making as one big cake.  The individual cakes seem to stay more moist, but the toffee sauce was good to drizzle over the entire cake and a little extra on each piece. It was the perfect sweet ending to a lovely holiday meal.

Banoffee Pie

I discovered banoffee pie in England on a visit to see my family. One of my cousins made this and I fell in love. What is "banoffee" you ask? Well, pretty simple...Banana + Toffee = Banoffee.  It's a pie with a yummy crust made with the English Digestive biscuits, a layer of creamy toffee made with condensed milk, a layer of fresh bananas, a layer of whipped cream and sprinkled with chocolate.

It had been years since I'd tasted this banana toffee concoction until we tried it at a restaurant in the U.S. recently. So, I thought I'd try to make it myself and here was my go at it.

I made the digestive biscuit crust and pressed it into a tart pan with a removable bottom and it didn't turn out too bad.  My failure was in the toffee. It did burn on the bottom of the pan just a tad and didn't seem to set too well.  It did taste good, but I need to try again on this.

Banana layer...easy. Just slice and arrange on top of the toffee. 

The whipped cream layer was quite easy as well.  However, please do not use Cool Whip or any prepared whipped cream of the like. I typically always make whipped cream from heavy whipping cream for any use, but especially for this. 

The final product was quite nice and I'll just have to try again (and enjoy again) to work on the toffee. I referenced a few recipes for this, including one posted on Nigella Lawson's site, but I tried a different method to make the toffee that didn't involve simply boiling the cans of condensed milk so I'll try that next time if I have 2 1/2 hours on my hands, which is rare.

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!