This post is a few days after the fact, but it was so tasty I wanted to highlight it.

We were invited to friends in honour of St. David’s day, with a Welsh-themed menu, and so I began searching for Welsh style desserts.  Well, there were a lot of suet-based puddings, which I felt were a bit too rich after a dinner of stew, and there were lot of desserts using breadcrumbs in a very thrifty manner, none of which left me feeling inspired.

At that point, I decided to not take the theme quite so literally, and try making individual sticky toffee puddings.  Again, further research showed quite a variety of recipes on what you would think would be a fairly standard recipe.  I opted to go with the Cooks Illustrated version, which not only had an extra dose of dates, but was also steamed — I think puddings should be steamed, not baked, for the right texture.

The recipe yielded 7 puddings in my standard pyrex custard dishes, which I steamed in a roasting pan.

While the puddings were steaming in the oven, I made the sticky toffee sauce — basically butter, brown sugar and heavy cream, with a splash of rum.  Very tasty!

They turned out pretty good, and as a dessert, I think they would be pretty versatile — especially as they can be reheated fairly easily.  The puddings would also be tasty with custard, or lemon sauce.  The toffee sauce would also be good over poached fruit, or plain over ice cream.

The verdict — two thumbs up.  I’ll be making more!