Sticky Toffee Pudding with Orange Custard

Rich toffee sponge pudding covered in sinfully sticky sauce, served warm with orange flavoured custard.

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Sticky Toffee Pudding with Orange Custard

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Let’s talk about pudding again, shall we? I’ve talked before about how in Britain the term “pudding” means any kind of dessert, well we also have a type of pudding called pudding – because why keep things simple and easy to understand! This type of pudding is generally sponge based and usually steamed, there’s lots of different types including the ever giggle inducing spotted dick and well known Christmas pudding! Sticky toffee pudding is probably one of the most loved though, it’s hard to resist that deep toffee flavour and gooey, sticky sauce it’s covered in!

Sticky Toffee Pudding with Orange Custard

 

I’ve never made pudding before because I didn’t own a pudding basin, plus I thought you needed some special steaming device – which is not the case! So when Kitchen Craft asked if I wanted to test their Master Class Non-Stick 2 Litre Pudding Steamer {affiliate link} I was like “does a dogs lips move when it reads?” aka “heck yeah!” Now, this pudding steamer is a big one, it’s not going to make no wimpy little pudding – your pudding will have some muscle! On the plus side, this means more pudding, yay! However, it does mean you will need a very large saucepan to be able to hold it (it needs to fit inside the pan with the pan’s lid on) – but it’s worth it for all that extra pudding goodness! The pudding steamer has a locking lid so you don’t have to worry about spills or water leaking in, and great little hands to make lifting it in and out easy (don’t forget those oven gloves though, they’ll be hot!). Plus, like all of Kitchen Craft’s products, the non stick coating is fool proof – your puddings will literally slide right out with zero effort – exactly what you want in a pudding steamer, especially for those more delicate puddings. And if, like me, you don’t have a pan quite big enough to hold it, no worries, it’s oven safe too! 

Sticky Toffee Pudding with Orange Custard

 

Sticky Toffee Pudding is traditionally steamed but it’s just as good when baked, like I did. This pudding was beautifully moist with such rich flavour. A lot of that unique flavour comes from black treacle (aka molasses), it’s sticky and messy but that strong, slightly bitter flavour is exactly what you want, and a little goes a long way! And speaking of sticky and messy, the sauce is heavenly – all that rich toffee flavour in a sweet, sticky sauce that gets even stickier the longer you leave it to do it’s thing!

Sticky Toffee Pudding with Orange Custard

 

There is sugar in sticky toffee pudding, but the majority of the sweetness comes from dates. Usually one would use medjool dates but since I couldn’t find any I used Tunisian dates, aka Deglet Nour, which are delicious and worked extremely well. They’re pitted and soaked, then pureed before being added to the batter.

Sticky Toffee Pudding with Orange Custard 

Sticky toffee pudding is served warm, usually with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or some warm custard, and I never pass up an opportunity to smother my dessert in yummy custard so that’s what I went with. I put a little orange zest in the sauce and soaked the dates in orange juice to compliment the toffee flavour, so I decided to make the custard orange flavoured to enhance that. The flavours work really well together and I really do recommend making the two together. In Britain we like to eat custard by itself for dessert, I guess it’s our version of America’s pudding, and this orange custard would be delicious to eat by itself – served hot or cold. 

Sticky Toffee Pudding with Orange Custard

Not only is this pudding crazy delicious and a great way to impress your guests, it’s really easy to make too. You can even make it a day ahead, actually it’s encouraged that you do to allow the pudding to sit in the sauce and get extra sticky! Even the clean up is nice and easy if you go with Kitchen Craft, because the pudding steamer is dishwasher safe, don’t you just love it when that happens? It’s also freezer safe too, which can come in very handy! Just whip up the pudding and bake, while it’s baking make the sauce, cover the pudding in the sauce and leave to rest. When you’re ready to serve, make the custard and warm up the pudding, throw the basin in the dishwasher and you’re basking in the compliments of your friends and family in no time!

Sticky Toffee Pudding with Orange Custard

Sticky Toffee Pudding with Orange Custard
Rich, toffee flavoured sponge pudding served with sweet orange custard
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For the pudding
  1. 240g whole dates (medjool or Tunisian are good)
  2. Juice of 1 orange
  3. Up to 175ml boiling water
  4. 1 tsp vanilla extract
  5. 175g plain flour (all purpose)
  6. 1 tsp baking powder
  7. 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
  8. 1/4 tsp salt
  9. 2 large eggs
  10. 85g unsalted butter, softened
  11. 140g demerara sugar
  12. 2 tbsp black treacle (molasses)
  13. 100ml milk
For the sauce
  1. 175g light brown sugar
  2. 50g unsalted butter, cut into cubes
  3. 225ml double cream (heavy), divided
  4. 1 tbsp black treacle
  5. 1 tsp orange zest
For the custard
  1. 100ml double cream
  2. Zest of 2 oranges
  3. 4 cardamom pods, well bruised
  4. 350ml whole milk
  5. 2 large egg yolks
  6. 1.5 tbsp cornflour (cornstarch)
  7. 50g caster sugar (super fine granulated sugar)
  8. Juice of 1 orange
To make the pudding
  1. Stone and chop the dates, put into a medium sized bowl.
  2. Pour the orange juice into a measuring jug and fill up with boiling water to 175ml. Pour over dates and leave to soak for 30 minutes, until cool.
  3. Stir vanilla into dates and puree (with liquid) in blender or food processor until smooth. Set aside.
  4. Preheat over to 180C/350F and lightly grease pudding tin and place in a deep baking dish
  5. Combine flour, baking powder, bicarb and salt in a bowl, lightly whisk and set aside.
  6. Beat the eggs in a small bowl and set aside.
  7. Beat sugar and butter together until creamy, with demerara sugar it will still be pretty grainy so don't worry about that. Add eggs a little at a time then beat in treacle.
  8. Fold in 1/3 of the flour mixture, then half the milk. Repeat with remaining flour and milk.
  9. Stir in the pureed dates until combined.
  10. Spoon into pudding tin, fill the baking dish with a couple inches of water and bake until risen and firm, about 1 hour 15 minutes.
For the sauce
  1. Put the sugar, butter, half of the cream and the orange zest in a medium saucepan. Gently heat until butter is melted, then bring to a boil over a medium heat - stirring all the time, until sugar has dissolved.
  2. Stir in the black treacle and turn up heat to medium high, let bubble for 2-3 minutes until it turns a deep toffee colour, stirring occasionally.
  3. Remove from heat and stir in the rest of the cream.
  4. When the pudding is done, remove from the oven and leave to cool in tin for 5 minutes then turn out. Empty the water from the baking dish and dry, pour half the sauce into the bottom of the dish and sit the putting on top of it. Pour the rest of the sauce all over the pudding.
  5. Loosely cover with a foil tent and leave to rest overnight (does not need to be chilled, a cool dry place is good).
To make the custard
  1. The day before making(preferably when making the pudding) put the orange zest and cardamom pods into the 100ml cream. Cover and leave in the fridge to steep overnight.
  2. Put the cream with zest and cardamom, plus the milk in a medium saucepan. Heat gently on low until just before boiling (little bubbles will beginning forming around the edge), this can take up to 10 minutes. Don't be tempted to speed it up by increasing the heat, the nice slow heat will help steep even more flavour from the zest and cardamom.
  3. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, whisk egg yolks, cornflour and sugar together until thick (a handmixer is best for this, but can be done by hand). Whisk in orange juice.
  4. Strain the hot milk mixture into a bowl with a fine mesh sieve, squeezing as much as you can from the zest to get all the yummy flavour.
  5. Gradually add the hot milk mixture to the egg mixture, whisking constantly.
  6. Wipe out the saucepan and pour the mix back in, heat gently while stirring with a wooden spoon until custard is thickened and coats the back of the spoon.
  7. When ready to serve, remove foil from pudding and place in an oven preheated to 180C/350F, heat for 10-15 minutes until warm through. Cut slices, spooning sauce over each slice. Serve with the warm custard.
Notes
  1. Pudding will keep covered tightly in a cool, dry place for up to 3 days.
  2. Individual slices can be warmed up in the microwave with custard.
  3. Store custard covered in the fridge for up to 3 days, place layer of cling film directly on surface of the custard to stop a skin forming.
  4. Demerara sugar is a partially refined, large grained sugar. You should be able to find it in the baking aisle, but in a pinch can be substituted with light brown sugar.
A Tipsy Giraffe https://www.atipsygiraffe.com/
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 Sticky Toffee Pudding with Orange Custard

This recipe makes enough pudding for a 2 litre basin with a little room to spare. The great thing about sticky toffee pudding is you don’t even need a pudding tin to make it – you can also bake it as a tray bake and it’ll be just as yummy. I would imagine with this recipe a 13″ x 9″ brownie pan should do the trick, but you may need to play around with that. Baking time will also be less as well. Once baked, keep it in the tray and pour over the all the sauce. Cut out squares to serve, yum!!

Sticky Toffee Pudding with Orange Custard

I’m not at all happy with these photos just by the way! The lighting wasn’t great to start with and it’s really hard to make a dark brown, sponge pudding look appetising! I was hoping the pops of colour from the plate and dish towel would help! Nevermind, the recipe is delicious enough to carry all the burden of yummyness so it’s all good! 

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22 comments

  1. Loretta says:

    Well I never!!! Would you look at that pudding bowl, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it before. I wonder if it only available in the UK? Your concoctions are always pretty darn amazing! Here’s a case where you really want to reach out and grab a piece. Absolutely gorgeous Michelle. 🙂

  2. Dini @ Giramuk's Kitchen says:

    It’s not rude to drool on my keyboard right? Seriously! It’s breakfast and all I want is to have a big helping of this! The orange custard is brilliant! Pinning and sharing 😀
    ps – I’m so sorry about your personalized spoon 🙁

  3. tentimestea says:

    Beautiful!! I don’t know if there’s anything that can look more appealing than this! I have a weak spot for warm custard as well, and it sounds perfect together with the pudding…

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