Sticky Toffee Pudding

Sticky Toffee Pudding is an English dessert consisting of a moist sponge cake, made with nuts or rolled dates and then covered in a toffee sauce.  Then its topped with custard or ice cream.  Its delicious and it was also also fun to bake.  At the time it was my first experience tasting any English desserts.  I've never been to England, but when I visited Paris I ate at an English Pub and enjoyed some out of this world Chocolate Pudding.  Like the Cherry Clafoutis I baked, I made this in 2011 before I started blogging.  The recipe I used to make my Sticky Toffee Pudding was from Nigella Lawson on The Food Network.  

                                                                Easy Sticky-Toffee Dessert

Yield: 6 to 8 Servings

Ingredients

for the cake:
Butter, for baking dish plus 1/4 cup, melted.
Scant 1/3 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1 cup plus 2 T. self rising flour
1/2 cup whole milk
1 egg
1 t. vanilla
3/4 cup plus 2 T. chopped, rolled dates
For the sauce:
3/4 c. dark brown sugar, packed
2 T. butter in little blobs
2 1/4 c. boiling water

For the cake:
Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 F and butter a 1 1/2-quart capacity baking dish.  Combine the sugar with the flour in a large bowl.  Pour the milk into a measuring cup, beat in the egg, vanilla and melted butter and then pour this mixture over the sugar and flour, stirring with a wooden spoon to combine.  Fold in the dates then scrape into the prepared baking dish.  Don't worry if it doesn't look very full, it will by the time it cooks. 
For the sauce:
Sprinkle the sugar over the cake mixture and dot with butter. Pour over the boiling water (yes, really!) and transfer to the oven.  Set the time for 45 minutes, though you might find the dessert needs 5 or 10 minutes more.  The top of the dessert should be springy and spongy when it's cooked; underneath the butter, dark brown sugar and boiling water will have turned into a rich, sticky sauce.  Serve with vanilla ice cream.