The other day it seemed that everyone had come home smiling from the shops laden with dates. We like dates, but this surely was a surfeit. We got bored with snacking on their beneficent availability; at first they hung around in those weird-shaped boxes, lurked on occasional tables and hid in the fruit bowl. Then they seemed to have migrated to the bread bin, and a few days later on, to the top of the fridge.

Something needed to be done; in fact we needed to make Sticky Toffee Pudding.

Now, you may have eaten this pudding and believed it to be full of toffee, not dates. But it is true, most of the sweetness comes from the dried fruit. It makes it sound a lot less threatening to your health and teeth now, doesn't it? The pudding is still very sweet, but it wouldn't live up to its name by being a healthy option would it?

You may look on the Internet and find countless recipes for this traditional British dessert - all of which are entirely different. Confusing? Yes. This recipe for Sticky Toffee Pudding came about by taking all the best bits from the other recipes, along with the easiest methods, while, hopefully, the lowest in added sugar and dairy cream content¹. This pudding tastes like a dream and is very sticky.

Ingredients

• 200g stoned² dates
• 1 ordinary teabag
• Half a teaspoonful bicarbonate of soda
• 125g Demerara³ sugar⁴
• 125g unsalted butter
• 2 large eggs
• 125g self-raising flour⁵

• 60g granulated (white) sugar
• 30g unsalted butter
• 150ml double cream
• 1 dessertspoonful golden syrup

Method

What you do:

Grab your dates - 200 grams of them, without stones - and chop them into small pieces. Don't worry about being too precise. You'll find out why later on.

Shove them into a jug, a Pyrex one if you have it, add a teabag (ordinary tea such as Tetley is fine). Pour some boiling water over the dates, just enough to cover them, stir gently, and after about 30 seconds remove the teabag. Now add half a level teaspoonful of bicarbonate of soda, and stir again. Put the jug into the microwave oven and heat on high for 30 seconds. Remove and cover. If you don't have a teabag, make about half a pint of black tea, not too strong, and strain it over the dates instead.

Next, make a toffee sauce. Put 60g granulated sugar into a heavy-bottomed saucepan along with 30g unsalted butter.

Heat carefully until the sugar has melted. Stir continually and thoroughly over a medium heat until the sugar begins to turn a golden brown. Keep stirring to amalgamate the butter into the sugar syrup. Be careful not to overheat and burn this mixture. You're aiming for a nice caramel colour rather than treacle toffee. Once the sugar and butter look as if they are turning to caramel, immediately take the pan off the heat and stir in one dessertspoonful of golden syrup. Keep stirring thoroughly. Take great care as the toffee will be extremely hot and it is easy to burn yourself. Also note that the toffee sauce will harden as it cools, so it will be a lot runnier when it is hot. This stage is not recommended for children to help with.

Once this mixture is smooth, stir in approximately 150ml double cream.

Pour the toffee sauce into the base of an 8cm-deep square baking tray 25×25cm. Leave to cool - if you have room in your freezer put it in there. Be careful to let the tray remain level so the sauce settles evenly.

While the toffee sauce is cooling, make the batter. Cream together the butter and sugar, beat until light and fluffy.

Beat in the eggs and add the warm date mixture. You will see why you didn't need to worry much about the dates being chopped evenly - by now they will be one big sticky gloopy mess. Use a spatula to get them all out of your jug.

Stir the mixture and fold in the flour. The mixture should be fairly runny.

Remove the tray from the chiller and pour the batter carefully over the top of the sauce.

Put it in the oven for about half an hour.

When it is cooked, let it cool in the tin. Then divide it into nine squares⁶.

Remove the pudding from the tin and put it into an airtight plastic box. Put the lid on the box firmly. Hide the box from your family⁷.

The next day the pudding will be ready to eat. The toffee will have softened overnight and the pudding itself will have become moister. You can serve it with ice cream or with custard.

It won't last long, so instructions for storage are unnecessary.