11 December, 2011

sticky toffee Christmas Cake

I was making efforts to do the Christmas menu list in advance because I know that I will not have time before the vacation to do that so. Simply, because I am working up till Christmas Eve.
So, I was going through my files and found this old recipe that I downloaded in August (!) 2010 (it's never early enough to start thinking of your Xmas menu, is it?!). The recipe seemed quick and easy and in my household that gives thumbs-up to a cake! The cake requires no steaming, chopping, feeding, watering whatsoever so as an experiment I made it tonight and if gets the approval (hm, hm...) from Phil then it is going to be part of our Christmas Menu this year!
fluffy and heavenly


Ingerdients:

for the cake
200g dates (pitted)
100g desiccated coconut (or chopped walnut, almond you name it)
1 carrot (grated)
1 juice of a big orange (or 4 tbs brandy)
2 tbs honey
1,5 tsp allspice
100g butter
140g sugar
2eggs
170g flour
1 tsp bicarb

for the toffee sauce
175g caster sugar
100g butter
6 tbs double cream
25g almond flakes

For the cake, chop the dates, grate the carrot and squeeze the orange juice. For the dry ingredients, measure out the flour,the coconut, the bicarb and the allspice and set aside. For the wet ingredients add the honey to the orange juice, dissolve. Then beat the eggs with the sugar, add the melted butter and emulsify (woo, it sounds very scientific!). Add the dry ingredients, the honey, the dates and the carrots to the mixture and stir carefully.
Pour the cake mixture into a buttered and papered 18cm cake tin, and bake on 160°C preheated oven for 80-90 minutes. When ready, check with a toothpick whether it's baked.
For the toffee, make caramel out of the sugar (no need to stir it, just leave it to caramelize in the pan) and add the almond flakes. When covered in caramel then fish it out and set aside and let it dry. Into the pan add the butter and the double cream to the left-over caramel. Cook till gets saucy and serve with the cake, along with the almond flakes.

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