AnnT used to make that regularly, her recipe can be found here:

https://thibeaultstable.com/2018/05/08/thibeaults-table-recipe-collection/

Her's does call for chopped dates, and I've never made it so I don't know if the recipe could be adjusted to allow the dates to be pureed.

Good luck!

Annie

Thanks Annie! i had a link to that recipe but it had expired. It looks really good! Do you think thr bundt idea would work? Or the springform?

Here's Ann_T's recipe. She uses an 8" springform pan lined with aluminum foil that it buttered well. I think a bundt pan is a very bad idea for this recipe, as "sticky" is part of the name, and you don't want it sticking to your bundt pan.

Note that her recipe does not have salt, and I think that it is important not to add salt to something with both dates and brown sugar - it would give it an "off" taste. You would not put salt in a date shake, and I've made lots of those.

I usually buy dates at Shield's Date Farm, in nearby Indio, and so I get a huge selection of varieties, some of which are only available seasonally, such as Bahri, which are by far my favorite. They are the sweetest and moistest but are only seldom available. Fortunately, the date farm is only 15 to 20 minutes from my house in Cathedral City, and they have a nice restaurant for breakfast or lunch. It used to be open for dinner, but now it is just for special events😞

Anyway, Medjool dates will work, but they are chewier than Bahri.

I've never soaked dates, but I have bought date crystals, which do require rehydrating, and are what is used for date shakes.

Ann_T's caramel sauce is also excellent, but I skip the pinch of salt - it is not necessary. What makes her caramel sauce so good is that she uses cream instead of milk. I only make caramel with cream and no milk and no salt.

Louise, I agree with Lars, I think the springform is a better idea, it might not come out of a bundt pan very well.

I also agree about the caramel sauce, I love the stuff. Not with salt, though, I don't understand today's obsession with "salted caramel". I brush the salt off when I can or pass the candy up entirely if I cannot.

I think the sticky toffee pudding would be amazingly decadent with the caramel sauce, though.

Annie

Since it’s a pudding, not a cake, here it would be made either in a pudding basin or in a large dish and cut into portions. It’s normally served in a bowl and eaten with a spoon because it’s so moist and gloopy. A fluted tin would be pointless since the surface is unctuous and squishy, not shapely. The original comes from this village https://www.cartmelvillageshop.co.uk/product/sticky-toffee-pudding/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/marys_sticky_toffee_41970 (This particular recipe doesn't contain dates. Most do, including the original.)

Dates usually dissolve into mush when cooked, so I don't know that pureeing would be necessary.

Dates become soft in a sticky toffee pudding. I always make mine in cupcake pans for individual servings as we did in a restaurant where I worked. DH is quite fond of them!

I made Ina Garten's recipe several times and we like it.

I’m planning finally, to make AnnT’s recipe. I have a really stupid question. The recipe says an 8 inch springform pan lined with foil. Does that meanthe foil iswrapped around the pan on the outside or the inside?

Because it is "buttered well", I'd say it's on the inside of the pan.

Annie

The lining of anything is usually on the inside, otherwise it would be ”covered with foil”.

If it was made in a pudding basin or tin, as is traditional, a lining wouldn't be necessary. Unlike a springform they wouldn't leak.

That was my first thought, to wrap it on the inside. The more I thought, the more I got tied up on that detail.

Hey, I just realized my old name finally appeared!

i just wanted to follow up. I made annT’s recipe. it was really good, but I think I could do better now that I’ve tried it. It didn’t leak, but even after a rather heavy spreading of butter on the foil, the sauce still stuck to the bottom. It wasn’t able to be easily scraped off. The cake/pudding was good. I just wasn’t over the top happy with it. It could be just me. I’m a bit rusty on my skills as I haven’t been cooking much.

What a bizarre contribution. Move their index fingers???? I have no idea what a ’British tea house’ might be, nor ‘foamed whipped cream’, nor ‘condensed cream’. None of those words means anything in my world. And vanilla ice cream actually takes the edge off the richness with the temperature contrast.

Eta clearly the bizarre post got zapped. Pity, it was such a badly done bit of spam it was very entertaining.

I missed that. I would also recommend Mary Berry's recipe. You make the cake, then you make a sticky sauce to pour over. Nothing complicated or tricky to do.

I also missed the "move their index fingers" comment with "British tea house" comment. It would have been interesting/entertaining to see, and so I wish that it had not been removed.

I tend to trust Mary Berry's recipes, but the first time I heard about STP was on Absolutely Fabulous, and I don't think I got to see it after someone had ordered it on that show. I remember that the name of the dish made absolutely no sense to me. Anyway, pudding never meant cake to me, and so it reminded me a bit of banana pudding, which has cookies in it.

Lars have you ever seen a traditional steamed sponge pudding? It's essentially cake! Heere's a national favourite. Yum. https://www.lylesgoldensyrup.com/recipe/steamed-syrup-sponge-pudding

And if you do not have the time or patience to steam your pudding, or you are mindful of fuel use, a passable substitue is to do it in the microwave. You can use and adapt a basic Victoria sponge recipe to make syrup, jam, chocolate or fruit puddings. So, it is essentially cake but made in a basin, turned out and served hot with custard, cream or ice cream.

These are traditional pudding basins. The small Pyrex is 1 (British) pint. The blue and white striped 2pt one is a traditional pattern, Cornish Ware.

Just curious, Floral, when you are not using these to make pudding are they still referred to as pudding basins or just bowls as we would call them in the U.S.?

No they're still a pudding basin. A pudding basin is a little different from just a bowl (though certainly it can be used as a bowl) because it has the wide band of extra pottery around the top edge for when you tie a string around the covering over the top- stops the string from slipping off.

Yep, they stay pudding basins. But obviously they have lots of uses besides making puddings.

The only puddings I bother to steam these days are the Christmas puddings. Like cakes, puddings are a rare occurrence in our house due to a constant effort to stay at an acceptable weight.

The exception is Summer Pudding, which is a whole other topic.

Colleen, thanks for the explanation. I was not aware of the broad band having a practical use-how clever! My ancestors originated in England and I grew up with English Plum Pudding every Christmas. My Grandma always made hers in 1# coffee cans with wax paper tied around the top for steaming or a steamer pot that came with racks and three kidney shaped pans. Obviously, they were served individually sliced, sauced and plated.

Floral, those are very pretty puddings and the summer one looks like our water ice.

Oh my goodness. This is delicious!

Summer Pudding is not an iced dessert. All you need is some stale white bread and some berries. I use raspberries, red and black currants and blackberries in any combination and any proportions. It works equally well with frozen berries. https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/summerpudding_90295 

Thanks, Floral, but the link isn't working. Sounds like the site is being worked on at present.

Well, if you put Summer Pudding“ into the search box on that site you’ll find links to several versions; here’s one:

Summer Pudding