Mini Sticky Toffee Pudding with Irish Whiskey Sauce

These mini sticky toffee puddings are delicious though the sauce is very sweet!

I got the recipe from the Good Food Channel; I was looking for Irish recipes for a blog challenge as it was St Patrick's day this month. I made half the quantity of the recipe which made three - obviously I was a bit more generous with my portions as the whole recipe is supposed to serve 8, but mine really weren't that big.

To make three, you need:

75g butter

extra for greasing or Cake Release or similar

85g ready-to-eat dates (without stones)

150ml water

1/2 tsp bicarb of soda

85g brown sugar

85g self-raising flour

1 egg

For the sauce:

150g caster sugar

150ml water

125ml cream

40g butter

2 tbsp Irish whiskey

Preheat oven to 180C and grease three ramekins or similar small dishes. Put the dates in a pan with 150ml water and bring to the boil. Simmer for 5 minutes until softened then stir in the bicarb of soda; the mixture will foam up. Remove from the heat and leave to cool for a few minutes, then blend in a liquidiser so you have a thick puree.

 In a bowl, cream the marg and sugar and add the egg. Fold in the flour.

Finally stir in the date puree.

 Spoon the mixture into the ramekins and bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes. You can either turn these out onto a wire rack then serve them in a bowl, or serve them as they come in the ramekins.

I found making the sauce quite tricky and I'm not sure what I did wrong. I took my eye off the first batch for just a minute and it burnt - and when I made it again, I couldn't get the sugar to caramelise. But these are the instructions in the recipe: put the sugar and water in a pan, bring to the boil then simmer for 15 minutes.

Stir in the cream, butter and whiskey and cook gently for another 8-10 minutes until thick. I used Bushmills Irish whiskey.

The sauce did turn lightly golden and thicken but it had the consistency of sugar rather than a creamy sauce, I'm not sure what I did wrong!

Pour the sauce over the puddings and serve. These were very good though extremely sweet - but my boyfriend liked them enough to have two!

I'm sending this to Baking with Spirit, hosted by Janine at Cake of the Week, as this month she has chosen dark spirits including whisky.

These puddings are also ideal for Treat Petite, hosted by Stuart at Cakeyboi and guest hosted this month by the Baking Explorer; the theme this time is Ireland.