Chocolate sticky toffee pudding {Recipe}

I have been looking for an excuse to make Sticky toffee pudding with quite some time and then I came across a competition over at Wholesome Ireland. It's called "The great Irish bake off challenge". I found them last week but I didn't like the lime tart you had to bake for the challenge so I held tough until this week

And as if like a sign from god the dish we have to bake this week is "sticky toffee pudding".

I have eaten this before and for some reason I never knew there were dates in it. I put that down to the fact that it tasted do good in the restaurant. Also, I have been known to be a little slow to get things something. What can I do? I can't be perfect at everything. :)

Any who, so I searched for recipes online. Trying to find the perfect one. I couldn't believe my luck when I found this one by Rachel Allen. It's for CHOCOLATE sticky toffee pudding.

I can have the best of both worlds: Chocolate and toffee. Yum yum!!

 I did make some changes to the recipe.

I changed from dark to milk chocolate cos I hate dark chocolate.

I had self raising flour at home so I used that instead, leaving out the BP and BofS.

I used vanilla essence instead of vanilla extract.

Ingredients

300ml (½ pint) boiling water

150g (5oz) chopped dates

100g (4oz) dark chocolate 

100g (4oz) butter, softened

150g (5oz) soft light brown sugar or light muscovado sugar

3 eggs

225g (8oz) plain flour

1tsp bicarbonate of soda

1tsp baking powder

For the toffee sauce

275g (10oz) golden syrup

275g (10oz) light brown sugar

100g (4oz) butter

225ml (8fl oz) cream

½ tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F, gas mark 4). Grease the sides of a 20cm (8in) diameter spring-form tin and line the base with a round disc of greaseproof paper.
2. Put the water in a saucepan, reduce to a simmer and soak the dates in it for 10 mins. At the same time, melt the chocolate in a bowl sitting over a saucepan of simmering water.
3. Cream the softened butter and sugar in a large bowl until pale and soft. Beat in the eggs one by one and then mix in the melted chocolate.

1.  Sift in the flour, then add the dates and the soaking liquid and stir to mix.
2. 
   

1.  Pour the mixture into the tin and bake in the oven for 1 hr or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the centre. Allow to cool slightly before transferring to a plate.
2. To make the toffee sauce, put all the ingredients into a saucepan on a high heat and boil them for 4-5 mins, stirring regularly, until they are smooth.

The smell of this while it was cooking was worth the trouble alone. It was alot easier to make then I thought it would too.

And this is how it turned out.

We had to take photos of our masterpieces as part of the competition.

A shot of the whole pudding (required shot)

With a little sprinkle of powdered sugar

Shot of a slice ( required shot)

Shot with some of the very sweet toffee sauce

Doesn't that look yummy!!

It tasted fab. But I think next time I'll make the sauce a little less sweet for the hubs. He doesn't have quite as many sweet teeth as I do.

Best of luck to everyone who entered.