As part of his feature on why he loves Christmas in Essex, Jamie Oliver shares his delicious recipe for chai sticky date pudding with toffee sauce
What you’ll need:
For the date pudding:
150g of unsalted butter (at room temperature), plus extra for greasing
500g of self-raising flour, plus extra for dusting
500g of dried, pitted dates
1 orange
2 chai tea bags
20g of bicarb
350g of dark brown sugar
5 large free-range eggs
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
50g of golden syrup
75g of black treacle
For the toffee sauce:
125g of double cream
50g of unsalted butter
50g of dark brown sugar
30g of golden syrup
1 lug of brandy
What you have to do:
1) Preheat the oven to 160C and place a tray of water in the bottom (this creates steam to keep the pudding moist), then butter and flour a 25cm tin.
2) Chop the pitted dates, and zest the orange. Boil 400ml of water, turn the heat off, then add the tea bags and infuse for 3 minutes. Boil again, whisk in the bicarb and add the dates. Leave to one side to cool to room temperature.
3) Cream the butter and sugar in a food processor until light and fluffy. Now whisk the eggs, vanilla, orange zest, golden syrup and treacle and pour into the butter mixture in stages, beating until smooth each time.
4) Sieve the flour and fold gently into the batter. Stir in the date mixture, then pour into a Bundt tin. Bake for 1 hour, or until a knife inserted into the centre comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tins for 5 minutes.
5) Pop all the sauce ingredients in a small pan and bring to the boil over a medium heat. Simmer for 5 minutes, stirring, then remove from the heat. Invert the pudding onto a platter and baste with a little of the sauce. Served with clotted cream and the remaining sauce on the side.
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