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I always seem to detect coffee when I eat sticky toffee pudding so, being a coffee lover, I decided to add coffee to a cake based on the pudding. If you feel you won’t like that, use freshly brewed tea instead. This is definitely a cake to come home to after a long, cold walk – more for the afternoon with tea or coffee, rather than a pudding.
Timings
Prep time: 30 minutes, plus cooling time
Cook time: 1 hour 10 minutes
Serves
10 or more (you don’t want big slices)
Ingredients
For the cake
- 200g pitted medjool dates, chopped
- 235ml strong coffee
- 125g butter, plus extra for greasing the tin
- 250g self-raising flour, plus extra for flouring the tin
- 200g dark muscovado sugar
- 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
- 1 tbsp golden syrup
- 1 tbsp treacle
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 70g walnuts or pecans, roughly chopped, to decorate
For the toffee glaze
- 100ml double cream
- 70g soft light-brown sugar
- 25g butter
- 1 tbsp golden syrup
- 2 tsp treacle
Method
- Put the dates in a saucepan and add the coffee. Bring to the boil then take off the heat. Leave for 30 minutes.
- Butter and flour a deep 22-23cm cake tin and tip out the excess flour.
- Heat the oven to 180C/170C fan/gas mark 4.
- Beat the sugar and butter for the cake until fluffy.
- Add the eggs a little at a time, beating well after each addition, then add the syrup, treacle and vanilla.
- Fold in the flour and bicarbonate of soda, then add the dates and their soaking liquid.
- Scrape the batter into the tin and bake for 50 minutes. A skewer inserted into the middle of the cake should come out clean.
- Leave to cool in the tin for 15 minutes, then turn it out on to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Meanwhile, put all the glaze ingredients into a saucepan and, stirring, bring to the boil.
- Turn the heat down and simmer for 8 minutes.
- Pour this into a bowl, put a piece of greaseproof paper on the surface of the glaze – to stop it developing a skin – and leave to cool completely. It will thicken considerably.
- Spread the glaze on top of the cake – it doesn’t matter if it runs down the sides a bit – and scatter over the nuts.
- Serve with pouring cream or crème fraîche.
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