Sticky Toffee Pudding

I never had sticky toffee pudding in the UK. Mama Ronin did however, and was absolutely ga-ga over the stuff.. and after making this, you will be too!
This vegan version will rival any traditional sticky toffee pudding recipe. Hands down. Seriously worth the effort.

Possible confusion note: STICKY TOFFEE PUDDING IS NOT ACTUALLY PUDDING! It's a wonderful, sponge cake soaked in syrup.



The original recipe is HERE from The Vegetarian Cookery School. So my metric friends can use that link directly to make it.

Here is the recipe converted to standard:

Ingredients for sponge cake

1 1/8 C soy milk
6 Tbsp water
1 1/2 C dates
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 C (=8 Tbsp) vegan margarine
3/4 C soft brown sugar (loose, not packed)
1 1/3 C white self raising flour
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

Ingredients for toffee sauce

5 Tbsp golden syrup
1 1/4 C soft brown sugar (loose, not packed)
1/2 C + 2 Tbsp (= 10Tbsp) vegan margarine
6 Tbsp soy creamer
1 tsp vanilla essence



1. Pre-heat the oven to 375F-190C-Gas5.

2. Line a 8" x 8" (20cmx 20cm) shallow cake tin with baking parchment.

3. Chop the dates in half & put them in a small saucepan and cover with the soy milk & water & simmer until the dates are soft.

4. Take off the heat & stir in the baking soda, which will froth as you add it to the date mixture. Leave to cool.

5. Beat together the margarine & sugar until pale & creamy.

6. Add the date mixture & stir in.

7. Mix the spices into the flour. Sieve the flour & fold into the sponge mixture.

8. Spoon the sponge mixture into the prepared tin.

9. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 30minutes or until cooked & the sponge bounces back when pressed.

10. To make the sauce: melt the syrup, margarine, sugar & vanilla essence in a small saucepan & simmer for 5 minutes without stirring. Leave to cool slightly & then stir in the soy creamer.

11. Prick the pudding all over & pour half the hot toffee sauce over the pudding. Serve the rest of the sauce with the pudding & if you like a scoop of vanilla soy ice cream.




This stuff is definitely for special occasions. It's so good you'll gain 5 lbs just looking at it!!!

The Ronin Returns

Loyal fans! I have survived the cloudy depths of the UK and emerged bearing incredible gifts for your taste buds future glee!

First of all, I possibly bought one of the most awesome cookbooks:


Vegan: Over 90 Mouthwatering Recipes for All Occasions

Made in association with The Vegan Society, this British food themed book is full of easy, delicious looking meals. I want to eat everything in it (sans beet soup. gross. sorry).

So stay tuned for recipes and pictures from it in the days to come.
I am trying to aim to update this everyday or every-other-day.


And now:
DELICIOUS FOOD THE REST OF THE WORLD IS MISSING OUT ON


Homemade phyllo parcel filled with mushrooms, leeks, chestnuts, onions, etc. Roasted potatoes, Brussels sprouts, carrots, parsnips, peas.




Mixed mushroom and ale pie with minty mushy peas an chunky chips. Ginger tofu cheesecake with rhubarb compote. From Mildred's in London. (Go there, all veg, tons of vegan options).




Real Scottish Breakfast. Vegetarian haggis, potato triangles, baked beans & toast, fried mushrooms and baked tomato.




Vegetable curry baked potato with vegetarian haggis samosa.


Plus lots of other homemade stuff. It's all awesome. Go eat it.

Fish and Chips

Made VGML's Fish and Chips for my British omni monkey and my mom. Success!

Trifle

My dude is British and I have heard him say “trifle” a few times in his craving-fits. I had never heard of trifle, the word itself reminds me of “tripe” something my grandfather used to eat. So that was a put off. In reality, it is a dessert. It sounded odd, but the image search yielded eyeball satisfaction. I decided to surprise him.

Trifle is true DIY do-what-you-want layered dessert. Every recipe I looked at was remarkably different. The skeleton of the recipe seems to be: Layer ladyfingers (sponge fingers), fresh/canned fruit, custard, and whipped cream. Do what you will from there. Some use regular sponge cake as the base, and some add jam in between those cakes. In the past 20 years, Jell-o (jelly) has been added in with the fruit! So many options! Hey that's great, but lemme get a handle on things before going experiementing. So I emailed his sister to ask what they ate at home.

Abracavegan!

(I couldn’t get anything fancy to put it in!)

Top to bottom, my layers:

Whipped cream
Custard
Jello (Jelly)
Fruit
Sponge cake

Starting with the bottom layer:

Sponge Cake (click for recipe)

This is FREAKIN delicious and I added a bit of lemon juice with the water. Wonderful.

Cool cake, slice and make your bottom layer

I lined the sides with strawberries at this point

Can/Tin/Fresh fruit

Pour canned fruit and jello over cake.

I actually soaked fresh strawberry slices in canned tropical fruit syrup while I was making the cake so it would have the sugary goodness. I poured the fruit over first to let it soak up a bit before the jello (because that seems weird to me). (I used the tropical fruit in another cake).

Agar Agar Jello

I used Apple-White grape juice instead of water (still added just a small amount of sugar though). I reduced the recipe by a third, but it still needed a bit more agar. I only used a small portion, maybe a cup- enough to not go over the cake before absorbing.

Pour over cake with fruit while still hot. Let it set in fridge

***If you are pouring this into a glass container, cup, etc, make sure it was HEAT TEMPERED, otherwise it will shatter at this stage***

Custard

I wish it were a little bit thicker- next time add more cornstarch. I added a pinch of cinnamon and it was overwhelming. Delicious, but maybe skip it. (First I made a custard on the back of an Australian no-egg powder box. Don’t, it’s gross.)

Let custard cool, stirring once in a while to avoid a skin. Add on top of fruit, let set.

Whipped Cream

I thought if I did this by hand it would be fluffier. Wrong. While the blender still keeps it runny, not as runny if you do it by hand. Still great tasting though.

Top your trifle off with it right before you serve it.

The result? Sure it wasn’t the trifle he was used to (and I had nothing to gage it against) but he loved it! I thought it tasted like a giant over indulgent strawberry shortcake- yum! He raved about the real sponge cake bottom. Me too, that sponge cake is magical, I'm tellin' ya!