Sticky date pudding

We made this for Grandma and Grandad while your Dad was in Sweden. I've never seen a pudding disappear so fast.

Makes six small puddings (they're quite heavy duty...). You'll need:

140g dates, chopped
105ml water
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
60g butter
60g sugar (I used light muscovado)
1 egg
60g self-raising flour

For the sauce you'll need:

100ml cream
90g dark muscovado sugar
70g butter

Stick the oven on at about 190 degrees C, and fish out a muffin tin (large) which you'll need to grease.

Sling the dates in a small saucepan with some water, and bring to the boil. Add the baking powder (which froths, to great amusement), and then leave this very odd mixture to cool down for a bit.

In the meantime, cream together the butter and sugar, and beat in the egg. Stir in the flour, and then the brown, odd-looking date mixture. It'll look like a right old mess - but mix it together, and then spoon into your muffin tins.

Bake in the oven for 20 minutes or so. To make the (butterscotch) sauce, you'll need to put the sugar, butter and cream in a small saucepan, and bring to the boil very slowly (you'll need to stir this). Simmer for 3 minutes or so, until it thickens and goes glossy.

You can just pour this over the pudding, and eat straightaway, or if you want to be fancy about it, pour a little over each of the puddings and stick them back in the oven for a couple of minutes, to make a sticky glaze. Needless to say, ours didn't get that far...