Cooking the Books: Sticky Toffee Pudding

As I mentioned in my last post I was recently offered the chance to review the Sweet Utopia cookbook from Book Publishing Company. They were kind enough to send it all the way to Saudi Arabia, I was so pleased!

When I first received the book and began flipping through its colorful, glossy pages I was immediately drooling over the fantastic looking recipes, but I was also worried. They all looked pretty complex, would I be able to make them?

It might seem strange to you that I can be easily     intimidated when it comes to baking, after all, I have my own bakery. But it took me months to write all the recipes for my products and many months after that to get them to a point where I knew I could make them perfectly every time. Cooking to me is natural and easy, baking is not. So, it was with more than a bit of trepidation I began to choose the two recipes I would share with you.

It is a testament to how absolutely packed this cookbook is with fabulous dessert recipes that I couldn’t get past page 45 without already choosing the two dishes I would start with. There are 171 pages of recipes in this cookbook and I couldn’t even get halfway through before I was running to the kitchen to grab my pots and pans.

This first dish I decided to make was the Sticky Toffee Pudding on page 44 of this wonderful book.

I love this classic English dessert, the flavor of sweet butter and toffee shines through and the sticky sauce that drowns everything is so good I wanted to eat it like soup. My fears were completely erased as I put together this shockingly simple dessert. I couldn’t believe how easy everything came together!

All you have to do is mix up the batter, bake it, and then top the subtly sweet cake with an intensely rich sauce and you have a stunning, addicting dessert. And when I say addicting I mean you will be dreaming about this amazing dessert and stumbling to the kitchen at 2am for ‘just one more bite!’

Sticky Toffee Pudding

Date Mixture

2 cups chopped dates

2 cups water

Cake

3 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

2 cups powdered sugar

½ cup vegan butter substitute, at room temperature

¼ cup soy milk

1 tsp white vinegar (I used apple cider vinegar and it was fine)

Sticky Sauce

2 and ½ cups brown sugar

1 cup vegan butter

1 cup vanilla soy creamer or 1 cup plain soy creamer plus ½ tsp vanilla extract (I used vanilla soy milk and it was fine)

To Make the Date Mixture: combine the dates and water in a small saucepan and simmer until the dates soften, about 5 minutes. Set aside to cool; do not drain. When cool, process in a blender or food processor until smooth. (Warning: you will want to eat this like soup. Try to resist.)

To Make the Cake: Preheat the oven to 350F and oil and flour a 9 x 13-inch baking pan. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl. In a separate large bowl, combine the sugar and vegan butter and beat with a wooden spoon until fluffy. Beat in the soymilk and vinegar. Stir in the flour mixture and date mixture and mix until smooth. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for about 35 minutes, or until the cake is light brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. (Just a note: My batter did not pour, it was more like a dough so it needed to be pressed into the pan. Have no fear, it was just perfect and could not have been more scrumptious.)

To Make the Sauce: Combine the sugar, vegan butter, and half of the soy creamer in a medium saucepan and mix well. Bring to a boil, stirring often with a wooden spoon. Remove from the heat and let cool slightly. Whisk in the remaining soy creamer. If you are using plain creamer, stir in the vanilla extract. (Okay, at this point you will be unable to resist drinking this like soup. Just try to save some to pour on the cake!)

To Serve: Poke many holes in the top of the cake using a fork and pour half of the sauce over the top, allowing it to soak into the cake. Cut the cake into 3-inch squares. (This is crazy talk, cut it into huge slabs!) Keep the remaining sauce hot and spoon over the warm cake. Store leftover sauce and cake tightly covered in the refrigerator.

Note: You can prepare the Sticky Sauce a day in advance, just mix it well prior to serving as it may separate. You can also make the cake a day in advance. Before serving, warm it for 5 to 10 minutes in a preheated 350F oven. For fewer servings, you can easily cut the recipe in half and use a 9-inch square baking pan. The baking time will remain the same. (Fewer servings? Don’t do it! Just make the big portion otherwise you will regret it!)

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If you make this cake I guarantee you will love it! Thank you to Book Publishing Company for sharing Sweet Utopia with me. Stay tuned for the next recipe from Sweet Utopia: the Ultimate Peanut Butter Cup Cake! It is so good I’m renaming Polly after it.

They also sent me a copy of The Simple Little Vegan Dog Book, a  cookbook of vegan recipes for dogs! I will be sharing some of those great recipes with you, too, so you can share them with your favorite four legged friend!

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You only have a couple more days to enter my Zukay Live raw salad dressing giveaway for your chance to win an entire case of delicious vegan salad dressing! Get to it!