Sticky Date Pudding with Two Sauces

Yet another date dessert. But it would be remiss of me not to try to make this dessert - not just because we overshopped and now have a couple pounds of dates, but also because I enjoyed it often in Singapore. My godmum's office is on Duxton Hill and I spent a fair amount of time there. Sometimes she'd take me out to lunch to Broth - an Australian restaurant on the same street. I am not big on salads but I always ordered the Caesar salad with poached egg and she would have the spinach and portobello mushroom salad. Delicious dishes but they really just gave us permission to follow-up our meal with a sticky date pudding with butterscotch sauce. Yes, our salads spoke to us and told us to go ahead and order the dessert since we only had leaves for lunch.

And this would be the part I start sniffing about how I miss her and eating this sticky date pudding reminds me of her. Well, I do miss her, OK? Growing-up, she was my rock and she also brought up two beautiful girls who are generous enough to share their mother with me. So there. But even if you have no memory related to sticky date pudding, this is a great dessert to celebrate the coming of autumn with. (yup, I just ended a sentence with a preposition)

The Pudding

This turned out to be the perfect dessert for me to continue with to experiment baking with agave. Substitution of granulated sugar with agave calls for a reduction of a liquid and I usually have a hard time figuring out which liquid to reduce. But it was easy with recipe because water is an ingredient. I also added a teaspoon of molasses for color - this is optional. In addition to butterscotch sauce, I also decided to do a white chocolate sauce which I thought would be refreshing without losing the saccharine sweetness that is associated with butterscotch. I used Black & Green's white chocolate which has vanilla bean bits. The recipe I used called for dariole molds, which I've never even heard of, much less have. I was about to go and buy bouchon molds but upon close inspection realized it had a similar shape to my mini popover pan. So I used that, and also tried it with a muffin pan. Both worked well.

Sticky Date Pudding with Two Sauces
adapted from Masterchef Australia

1½ dates, chopped finely
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1¼ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ stick butter
⅔ cup agave*
1 teaspoon molasses - optional
2 large eggs
1 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

1. Lightly oil the baking pan and set the oven to 325˚ F. Heat the water and dates in a saucepan and when it reaches boiling point, switch off the heat and add the baking soda. Set aside to cool and stir occasionally.

2. Cream the butter and add agave, beating mixture for about 4 minutes. Add one egg at a time and vanilla essence until incorporated. Add the flour and baking powder, mixing slowly until well-combined. Then fold in the date mixture.

3. Pour the mixture into each popover mold, until ¾ full and put it on the middle rack in the oven. Place a tray of water under the popover pan. Bake for about 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. The texture should be spongy.

Makes 12 puddings.

* If you don't have agave, you can substitute with 1 cup brown sugar and add ¼ cup water. Increase oven temperature to 350˚ F and reduce baking time to about 40 minutes.

The portion for each sauce below is sufficient for all the cakes in the recipe. Halve the portions if you want to make both sauces.

Butterscotch sauce
⅔ agave
½ stick butter
1 cup cream
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
pinch of salt

1. Mix all the ingredients in a saucepan on low heat. When the butter is melted, increase heat until boiling point, then lower the heat and stir for 8-10 minutes.

2. Pour about one tablespoon of the warm butterscotch sauce over each cake. Serve with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream.

White chocolate sauce
1¼ cup cream
1 packet (3.5 oz) Green & Black's white chocolate

1. Mix the ingredients in a saucepan on low heat until the white chocolate melts. Bring to a boil and then lower the heat. Stir frequently for about 8-10 minutes.

2. Pour about one tablespoon of the white chocolate sauce over each cake.