Sunday, October 14, 2007

Date Cake with Toffee Sauce

Sticky Toffee Cake

Sticky Toffee Cake

Yesterday I tried to make the Date Cake from Desserts from Chanterelle. I bought a bag of california dates, figuring they'd be fine; however, the recipe calls for 9oz of unpitted medjool dates and I wasn't comfortable estimating a substitution. I made the toffee sauce and decided to buy medjool dates the next day.

Dates

The medjool dates are on the right. They're moist and meaty while the california dates are slightly dry and much less flavorful. Sometimes it's worth it to spend slightly more for good ingredients.

I didn't have a 9in square pan, so I set aside one cup of the batter and baked the rest in an 8in square. I used the extra to make some mini cakes for sampling and photos, as the whole cake is going to Bloomfield for a dinner.

This Date Cake is Kate Zuckerman's version of a sticky toffee pudding. It's a great cake for fall; it's spiced with cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, espresso powder and rum. The warm toffee sauce is a rich, boozy concoction of butter, cream, rum, and brown sugar.

I highly recommend this. Please don't ask me to post the recipe; I have mentioned several from this book already and I do not think it's fair to put them all online.

4 comments:

gorochan said...

oh, chantErelle. Aha: http://www.amazon.com/Sweet-Life-Desserts-Chanterelle/dp/0821257447

PS one time I made pumpkin bread starting after midnight. Around 2, after taking a short nap, I expected them to be done. Unfortunately I forgot the leavening, so they didn't rise. I also forgot the eggs. That was not tasty pumpkin bread, didn't even translate into bread pudding.

Pittsburgh Needs Eated said...

Thanks for that correction. I've edited the title in earlier posts to fix the spelling.

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spicyicecream said...

I made this cake last year and I loved it too. Sticky date pudding is one of my favourite desserts ever :)