Sticky Toffee Chocolate Puddings - Random Recipes 15

It's Dom's second anniversary at Belleau Kitchen this month and to help him celebrate he asked us all to randomly select a recipe from one of our baking books. Hooray. This narrowed things down and made the task somewhat easier as I didn't have to search through every bookshelf and stack in the house. Including my chocolate books, this gave me twenty in total. I asked CT to choose a number and as it was Friday the 13th at the time, 13 was the number he chose. Luckily 13 was my lovely grandmother's lucky number, so I don't feel in the least bit filled with gloom by this particular integer. And I was right not to be gloom filled as the book turned out to be Green & Black's Ultimate. Flicking through the pages with my eyes closed I landed on a recipe for pudding - Chocolate Sticky Toffee Pudding Cake to be precise. Given that there is often a piece of cake lying around the house to be had, I rarely make puddings, but a friend coming over for supper a couple of night's ago provided the perfect opportunity.

This very friend had persuaded me just a few days before to buy these cheery little ramekin dishes when we were out and about. So rather than make one large cakey pudding as suggested, it seemed more apt to make individual ones and use these colourful ramekins. As we still had quite a bit of cake left over from my first Clandestine Cake Club event, I only made half of the amount specified in the book.

This is how I did it:

• Chopped 75g dried dates and placed in a medium sized saucepan.
• Poured on 150ml boiling water and simmered for a few minutes with the lid on. Turned the heat off and left to soak whilst I found and greased my ramekin dishes.
• Added 50g unsalted butter, 75g light Muscovado sugar and 75g dark chocolate (85%) and left those to melt.
• Sifted 120g wholemeal spelt into a mixing bowl with 1/2 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp bicarb of soda. Made a well in the centre.
• Stirred the chocolate mixture until all incorporated then poured into the flour and mixed.
• Broke in 2 smallish duck eggs (probably medium hens eggs) and beat well with my wooden spoon.
• Spooned into the ramekin dishes filling them to just over 3/4 - I also had enough to nearly fill to mini loaf moulds.
• Baked for 20 minutes at 180C.

• Melted 50g unsalted butter in a pan with 2 large tbsp golden syrup.
• Stirred in 100g light Muscovado sugar.
• Poured in 100ml double cream and stirred.
• Bought to a simmer and let it bubble for a few minutes, stirring from time to time.
• Poured some toffee sauce over each of the puddings as soon as they were out of the oven.
• Spent an inordinate amount of time trying to take a photograph in the gloom without a flash until everyone was well and truly fed up with me.

Luckily the puddings were still warm and quite delicious. The dates and spelt combined to give them quite a chewy texture and substantial presence, just what was needed for the damp and cool weather we are experiencing. The sponge wasn't overly sweet, so the toffee sauce was by no means saccharine overkill.