What's a long weekend (and a partially wet and miserable one at that) without a bit of baking?

Had a load of family and friends come by for the weekend and thought of dishing up something different! (As in... not a cheesecake, pavlova, ombre cake, custard related, etc).

And its winter... so we brought back the Sticky Date Pudding.. served with warm butterscotch sauce. It made the kitchen smell amazing! Warm and inviting (because my house isn't warm and inviting enough... ;)!)

I think we had a couple of people who were quite uncertain about this dish. It looked rather boring and it doesn't have the air of elegance of a lot of other desserts (also highly likely that my plating skills are ordinary, not extraordinary...). And it was warm! Anyways, taste won over and there wasn't much left even though I made sure to make enough for everyone plus leftovers! Leftovers all taken away in boxes. That makes me happy!

Personally the butterscotch sauce was a little too sweet for me but everyone else thought it was really good so not sure if i should tweak recipe or not. Will have to do a few more trials...

Serves 6

Ingredients
Pudding
250 g dried dates, pitted
1 C water
1 t bicarb soda
100 g butter
1 C brown sugar
1 t vanilla
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 C S.R. flour
3/4 C macadamias (or other nuts such as pecans or walnuts)

Caramel Sauce
300 mL thickened cream
1 C brown sugar
1 t vanilla
60 g butter

Method
1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Lightly grease and line an square baking dish.
2. Soak dates in 1 C boiling water until most of the water is absorbed. This may need to be done over a saucepan. Remove from heat and stir in bicarb soda.
3. Cream butter, sugar and vanilla. Whisk in eggs. Add dates and fold in flour and nuts.
4. Pour over baking dish and bake for 20-25 minutes.
5. Prepare caramel sauce by heating all ingredients in a heavy saucepan over medium heat. Bring to boil before reducing heat to simmer and thicken (about 5 minutes).
6. Drizzle over pudding before serving.