Having much enjoyed making Sticky Toffee Pudding, known in some places as Sticky Date Pudding I thought I would try to make some muffins of a similar nature. So today I present my Sticky Toffee Muffins.
I did make a slight change, from the pudding, using light muscovado sugar rather than dark, as I wanted the pudding to be slightly lighter in colour. Made from the residue of molasses the dark sugar has a slightly more intense flavour. I wanted it to be just a little lighter this time. I also blitzed the soaked dates a little to make more of a puree than chunks of dates that would go in the pudding, that was in an attempt to make the texture more like a muffin.
The other difference is that I didn’t soak the muffins in the toffee sauce immediately after baking, as you do with the pudding. I wanted to be able to remove them from the tin and for them to stand up, which they may not do if too wet.
Of course you have to have a toffee sauce too, so I made that as well, otherwise the epithet sticky toffee wouldn’t apply.
I am very pleased indeed with the result of the muffins, baked in the tin, rather than in paper cups. They stand up very well and with some of the toffee sauce poured over them and a little whipped cream on the side they really do make a lovely dessert, to be eaten warm or cold.
My goodness they do taste good.
Ingredients:
For the muffins
- 250g pitted dates, chopped into pieces
- 250ml water
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 60g unsalted butter
- 225g self-raising flour
- 140g light brown muscovado sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 medium eggs (lightly beaten). in USA that would be large eggs
- 60g unsalted butter
- 75g dark brown muscovado sugar
- 1 tablespoon golden syrup
- 125 ml double cream
- 125g double cream
- 2 tbsp icing sugar
- Place the chopped dates in a saucepan and sprinkle the baking soda over them.
- Add the water into the saucepan and stir. Leave for 20 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 180C/160C fan/350F/gas 4.
- Lightly grease a 12 hole muffin tin.
- Bring the chopped date mixture to the boil and take off the heat.
- Add the butter and stir to dissolve. Set aside to cool a little.
- Blitz the mixture in a food processor, or mash by hand until you have a chunky sort of puree.
- Sift the flour into a large bowl.
- Make sure there are no lumps in the muscovado sugar and add to the flour. If there are some lumps you can rub the sugar and flour between your fingers to eliminate them.
- Make a well in the flour/sugar mixture and pour in the eggs, vanilla extract and the date mixture.
- Stir together until just combined
- Divide among the muffin tins(the mixture may almost come up to the top as the baking soda will have made the date mixture rather fluffy) and bake for 20 mins.
- Test with a skewer and if it comes out clean remove the muffins from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes. Then take the muffins out of the tin and place on a wire rack that has some baking parchment on it(that is to stop the muffins from sticking to the rack).
- Now to make the toffee sauce, put the butter, muscovado sugar, golden syrup and cream in a pan over a low heat.
- Stir to combine, and bring to the boil.
- As soon as it reaches a boiling point reduce the heat and simmer for 10 mins until thickened.
- Remove from the heat and allow the sauce to cool to room temperature.
- For the whipped cream simply add the icing sugar to the double cream and whip until it is nice and thick and can be spooned on to the side of the plate next to the muffin. The toffee sauce can be poured over the muffin, and even a little over the cream if you like.
[…] too. Either way works very well. I also have a recipe, which appeared on my blog years ago, for Sticky Toffee Muffins, which could be considered an individual […]
Indeed, very tasty indeed. Well worth trying.
A scrumptious treat to be sure.