Butterscotch Sauce!

On a night out with my friends several years ago, the question "If you were an ice-cream, what flavour would you be?" came up, and mine was butterscotch by general consensus. Recently, this came up again with an entirely different group of people, and the answer was still butterscotch! I suppose I haven't changed much... sickly sweet, burns the tongue if you don't take your time and wait for it to cool, slightly salty, drizzles smooth when warm... yeah, I kinda like being butterscotch.

But up until now, I have never made butterscotch! I've always relied on storebought butterscotch chips, but for some reason, when I woke up today, I just wanted to make my own butterscotch sauce. So I'll share the surprisingly easy recipe here.

Homemade Butterscotch Sauce
Yield: 2 cups

• 60g butter
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• 3/4 cup cream
• 1 tbsp vanilla
• Pinch of sea salt

1. In a saucepan (preferably one with a rounded bottom), heat the butter on medium until melted
2. When the butter has mostly melted, add the sugar and stir with a wooden spoon for a few minutes
3. When the texture resembles the picture in step 3 above (sandy, stir-able, but not too runny) sub your wooden spatula for a whisk and move onto step 4
4. Turn the heat down to low and gradually add in the cream while whisking to incorporate steadily, you don't want to let it curdle as the cooler milk hits the hot sugar and butter
5. When all the milk has been added, turn the heat up to medium again and let it boil for up to 10 minutes, whisking occasionally so it doesn't burn and blends nicely
6. Remove from heat, let it cool for about 5 minutes before transferring to a glass bowl and stir in the vanilla and salt. Add more salt if you want a saltier flavour, but I like just a little touch to bring out the flavours

Serve over a warm slice of home made sticky date pudding! Or chocolate cake! Or on a cracker!

Sticky Date Pudding

The past five days have just flown right over my head, and now I find myself on the wrong side of a long weekend. We've all been here, yet coming back to this point never gets any easier. I do have some good news though: I finally have an oven again! So in a half-hearted attempt to lift my spirits, I decided to whip up a batch of something sinful and sweet... Sticky Date Pudding.

With butterscotch sauce. 

And pots of coffee, meatball spag, and a slice of carrot cake. 

But that's an entirely different ballpark. Let's come back to the pudding. 

This was my first time with this recipe, one I received from an aunt ages ago but tucked in one of my many notebooks and only found today. I might have altered it a little bit out of sheer unwillingness to execute as many steps, and even if it didn't turn out exactly like her pudding, it's still pretty darned good food. Let's get right down to the dirty details: 

Sticky Date Pudding, with butterscotch sauce

• 530g deseeded, dried dates - chopped roughly into small bits
• 1/4 cup date syrup (optional)
• 2 1/2 cups water
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 120g salted butter, chopped into cubes
• 2 large eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 300g light brown sugar
• 380g all purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder

1. Heat the dates, syrup and water in a medium sized saucepan and bring to a boil
2. Once it starts bubbling, take the saucepan off the heat and pop the butter and baking soda in. Stir gently and leave it to cool for half an hour or so - after which, you should transfer it to a mixing bowl
3. Preheat the oven to 180C and prepare your baking tin (I used a regular 11x8" tin)
4. Whisk the eggs and vanilla separately, then beat into the date mixture
5. Combine the sugar, flour, and baking powder then fold in with the rest of the ingredients
6. Pour into the baking tin (or muffin trays, ramekins, whichever you fancy) and bake for 30 minutes, or until a skewer poked through an angle comes out clean

Butterscotch sauce

• 11oz butterscotch chips
• 1/2 cup heavy cream

1. Heat the butterscotch and cream bain-marie style (I never knew if bain-marie is a verb or a noun...) until all the chips have melted and mixed with the cream into oozing deliciousness... 
2. Allow to cool for 15 minutes before pouring over the pudding, or be patient (unlike myself) and pour a personal sized amount over your own slice

You could also serve it with ice-cream (on the side, with butterscotch sauce still, of course) if you're feeling extra low. I just didn't have any on hand. 

Anyway, it's been an eventful weekend, I met some really interesting people... hung out with my family, got to eat a lot of really great food, and had a wonderful rest. I just can't wait for the weekend now to see what else I'm going to want to whip up in the kitchen, and also maybe... I might brave the real world and have some fun with my contemporaries ;) 

Lots of love, 

Nabs
PS: Definitely need to re-do this recipe with some cuter baking tins. I looked over all the pictures I took and they just don't work. Sorry guys.