Green & Black's Chocolate Sticky Toffee Pudding

Isn't that just the perfect winter warmer?

I actually made this back in January shortly after starting this blog, but never got around to posting! I'd received the Green & Black's Ultimate Chocolate Recipes book for Christmas, and this was the first thing I decided to make from it.You can find the recipe here.

It's pretty straightforward to make: preheat the oven to 180C and grease and line a 20cm springform cake tin. Soak the dates in a pan of simmering water for ten minutes and in the meantime, melt the chocolate in a microwave or bain marie.

Cream the butter and sugar in a large bowl, beat in the eggs one at a time, then mix in the melted chocolate.

Sift in the flour, bicarb of soda and baking powder, then the dates and the water they have been soaking in. Pour the mixture into the cake tin and bake for 50 minutes.

While it's cooking, make the toffee sauce - put the golden syrup, brown sugar, butter, cream and vanilla into a pan and bring to the boil, then cook, stirring, for about 5 minutes.

Pour the sauce over the top of the pudding when it is cooked. You can either do this in the tin or transfer the pudding to a serving dish then pour the sauce over. Any extra sauce can be poured into a jug and passed around for people to help themselves.

This is quite a heavy pudding so you need to leave room for it after a meal! It's a lovely winter warmer and the addition of chocolate - not something I'd put in a sticky toffee pudding before - was lovely. Obviously as this is from the Green & Black's cookery book you should use Green & Black's chocolate (though any kind would work!) and you could experiment with their different chocolate flavours - I think orange and butterscotch are flavours that would work well.

I'm sending this sticky toffee pudding to Ros at The More Than Occasional Baker, who is my co-host for Alphabakes and is running the challenge this month, as our randomly-selected letter is S.

I am also sending this to Tea Time Treats, hosted by Karen of Lavender and Lovage and Kate of What Kate Baked, as their theme this month is chocolate.