The Best Sticky Toffee Pudding Recipe Ever

A good old British classic dessert that I often crave is Sticky Toffee Pudding.

The Aussie equivalent Sticky Date Pudding...it's alright...but it does not have that rich dark treacle-y goodness from "oor gud old pudding" { say it with a Scottish accent please! }

So I scoured the interwebs for a recipe that I could make and after a couple of trials, I have come up with a winning recipe.

Award winning.

Best Sticky Toffee Pudding Ever awarded by my mother!!

So without further ado (not adieu!!), here it is...

The Best Sticky Toffee Pudding Ever

A modified version of Ultimate Sticky Toffee Pudding

Ingredients

[ For the pudding ]
240g pitted dates
175ml boiling hot water
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp vanilla extract
75g butter - softened
2tbsp brown sugar
2 eggs
4 tbsp treacle
175g self-raising flour
100ml milk (I used almond milk)

[ For the toffee sauce ]
100g brown sugar
50g butter
300ml thickened cream
2 tbsp treacle
A pinch of salt

1.  Soak the dates in the hot water and add the bicarbonate of soda.

2.  Use butter to grease a cupcake tin of 12.  Preheat the oven to 180 degrees fan forced.

3.  Blend or process the date mixture until it is all blended up.

4.  Cream the butter and sugar together for 2 minutes.  Then add the eggs one at a time and beat well.  Then beat in the treacle.  It might look curdled at this stage but don't worry about it.  It will all come together in the end.

5.  Sift a third of the self-raising flour into the bowl and fold the flour in gently.  Then fold in a third of the milk, then more flour.  Repeat until all flour and milk is used.  Be careful not to overmix!

7.  Gently fold in the processed dates.

8.  Divide the mixture into the 12 cupcake moulds of the tin.  Place in oven and bake for 10 minutes at 180 degrees and then turn the temperature down to 160 degrees and bake for another 5 minutes.  Check with a skewer and there may be some sticky crumbs but the majority of the skewer should be clean.  Otherwise, bake for another 2-3 minutes.

9.  To make the toffee sauce, place the sugars, butter, salt and half the cream in a pot.  Bring to the boil whilst stirring all the time until all the sugars have melted.  Add the treacle and let it bubble away for 2-3 minutes until it is a rich dark toffee colour, stirring occasionally to make sure it doesn't burn.  Take the pot off the heat and stir in the rest of the cream.

10.  Serve pudding warm with a gooey puddle of sauce with a side of cream / custard / ice cream.  Whatever you like!

P.S.  There will be a considerable amount of washing up to do!  Best left for the better half to do, of course, since you did all the hard work!

Originally posted on 23/2/2015 (almost 5 years ago!!!  what the...??!!) but posting it up now so that it looks like I have updated my blog when I haven't.  LOL!!!

How To Make The Best Chinese Roast Duck Ever

I love me some duck, I do!

{ FUN FACT : "Duck" in Cantonese - pronounced as "ngap" - also means gigolo }

Anyway, my dear Mum taught me how to make the best Chinese roast duck ever!

Crispy skin on the outside and juicy meat on the inside!

It's so DUCKING delicious!!!

And luckily for you, I made a video of the recipe and method of how to make it so you can make this delicious roast duck too!  { SUBSCRIBE TO OUR YOUTUBE HERE }

Maybe you can make this for your special someone for Valentines Day next week...?  Or Chinese New Year is coming up so why not pretend you're Chinese { if you're not already, that is! } and make this.

Just remember, it is NOT one of those recipes which you can make on the same day.  You actually need to prep the duck and wait { patiently } for 3-4 days for it to be ready to be roasted!

If you aren't a fan of videos, I've got the written version right here too :)  Don't say I'm not good to you!

Enjoy!

The Best Chinese Roast Duck Ever!

An original recipe by Ling's Mama

(Serves 2-4 people depending on how you serve it)

Ingredients

1 x duck (around 2kg+, thawed if frozen)

[A]
Half onion (sliced)
Knob of ginger (sliced)
4 cloves garlic (roughly chopped)
White bulb of spring onion (chopped)
1 x star anise
1 x cinnamon stick
2 x bay leaf

[B]
2 tbsp hoi sin sauce
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp five spice powder
1 tbsp garlic powder
1 tsp sesame oil

[C]
3 bowls of water
3 tbsp white vinegar
1 tbsp maltose { sticky syrup }

Method


1.  Remove duck innards and rinse duck with cold water

2.  Dry roast [A] in a pan until fragrant.  Allow to cool.

3.  Mix [B] together

4.  Combine [A] and [B] together and stuff everything into the duck cavity

5.  Use a skewer to sew the cavity together by threading in and out

6.  Boil [C] in a large pan or wok.

7.  With the mixture boiling, carefully lift up the duck by it's neck and use a ladle to bathe the duck all over.  Repeat 10 times.  At this stage, the duck's skin will be looking plump and shiny.  If not, repeat till it is.

8.  Allow to cool before placing it in the fridge uncovered to dry out for 3-4 days.  The longer you leave it to dry out, the crispier the skin!

9.  On the day you are going to roast the duck, remove from the fridge and place on top of roasting rack with the back side up, breast side down.  Wait 30 minutes if you have time to allow the duck to come to room temperature.

10.  Preheat oven to 190 degrees fan forced.  Place the tray in the oven on the middle shelf.

11.  Let it roast for 15 minutes back side down and then flip the duck over to breast side up and continue to roast for 45 minutes.  Open the door to have a look.  If the colour is not that roast duck red colour, put it back in for another 5 minutes and check again. 

12.  Remove from oven and let the duck rest for 15 minutes to allow the juices to settle. 

13.  Drain sauce from duck before chopping.  Save the sauce for noodles or make a gravy if you want.

14.  Chop it up and serve.

Personally, I love my roast duck with hoi sin sauce on dry noodles.  YUM!!!

#thebestchineseroastduckever - yep, it's so good that it deserves its own hashtag! :P  If you do happen to make it and you're an Instagram user, tag me @lingoutloud and use the hashtag #lingoutloudrecipes please so I can see and drooooool!!!