I have a lot of dates, so decided to make sticky toffee pudding. I used a recipe on Recipe Tin Eats because I was curious about her rather low sugar amount. One of my issues with any baked goods made with dates is that recipe writers pile on the sugar in spite of dates being incredibly sweet so I tend to find almost anything with dates cloying. Still, her sugar amount of only 40 g was far less than you’d see for this dessert. Other sticky toffee pudding recipes tend to have a sugar amount equal to the flour or just shy of it. The cake turns out nice and light following her recipe. I added around 1/2 tsp salt to it.
The sauce struck me as being very light in color. The only brown sugar sold here is even lighter than American light brown sugar and the molasses are a foul concoction that tastes more bitter than American blackstrap molasses so I don’t keep any. I had put in 1/4 tsp of salt into the sauce knowing I’d likely need another 1/4 tsp. I decided to toss 1/4 tsp mushroom soy into the sauce. It is very dark and will instantly transform the color while not being perceptible in such a small amount. It worked to produce a more appealing color and I certainly can’t taste it. I still added a few pinches of salt to the sauce to balance out the sweetness.
My impression of this cake is that she likes a lot of sauce and the sauce is a big part of sweetening. From my standpoint, I’d sweeten the cake a bit more and use less sauce. I’d also bake this in a larger pan. The cake is quite tall baked in an 8-inch and a larger pan means you get more exposed surface area for the sauce.
