Oh my winter is well and truly here, the days are dark, gloomy and cold so it’s the perfect time to cook and bake winter meals to warm you up. The other night we had some very good friends over for a hearty winters meal followed by a not so traditional (but equally delicious) Gingerbread Sticky Toffee Pudding generously served with warm caramel sauce. It was the perfect way to end the meal and keep us toasty and warm on a cold winter’s night. x
Click read more for the recipe

Gingerbread Sticky Toffee Pudding

1 cup dark stout beer, I used Guinness
170g pitted dates, roughly chopped
2 teaspoons baking soda
70g unsalted butter
¾ cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla essence
1¼ cups plain flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
¾ teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon fine sea salt
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
Preheat oven to 160°C and line the base of a round 20cm baking tin and lightly butter the sides. In a medium saucepan add the beer and dates and bring to a simmer over a medium heat. Once simmering stir in the baking soda and continue to stir occasionally for around 5 minutes. Once done puree the date mixture using either a food processor, hand blender - puree until smooth and set aside.
Cream together the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy, then beat in the eggs one at a time then add the vanilla, continue to beat until combined. In another bowl, whisk together the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, ground ginger, salt, and nutmeg. Then alternately add the flour and pureed date mixture to the creamed butter until all ingredients are used and the batter is combined and smooth - make sure you scrape down the sides of the bowl as you go. Once the cake batter is done, pour it into your prepared baking tin and bake for around 30-40 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes our clean. Allow to cool in the tin before transferring onto a cooling rack.
To serve heat under a low grill for 10min to warm it up, slice and generously pour easy homemade caramel sauce over the pudding. Enjoy! x