Sticky Toffee Apple Pudding Recipe

We love a good pub lunch on a blustery Autumn day and if there's sticky toffee pudding on the menu, so much the better! If you are missing your pub lunches during Lockdown 2.0 throw a roast in the oven and have a go at making this fantastic pudding in your slow cooker. This recipe is based on Sara Lewis' Sticky Toffee Apple Pudding recipe from her Ultimate Slow Cooker book (Hamlyn 2008) available from www.amazon.co.uk. See below for a preview:

Sticky Toffee Apple Pudding

Serves 4

Cooking time 3-3.5 hours

Setting: High

Ingredients for the pudding

50g butter, diced, plus extra to grease the souffle dish

150g self-raising flour

100g dark muscovado sugar

2 eggs

2 tbsp milk

1 dessert apple, cored and finely chopped

Vanilla ice-cream or pouring cream to serve

Ingredients for the sauce:

125g dark muscovado sugar

25g diced butter

300ml boiling water

Method

1) Butter the inside of a souffle dish 14cm across and 9cm high. Put the flour and butter in a bowl and rub together until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar, eggs and milk and mix until smooth. Mix in the apple.

2) Add the mixture to the souffle dish andspread it level. Sprinkle the sugar for the sauce over the top and dot with the 25g of butter. Pour the measured boiling water over the top then loosely cover with foil.

3) Make straps for your souffle dish by laying two lengths of string or foil in a cross shape and putting your dish on top. Bring the lengths up to form a loose handle at the top. Stabilize with extra lengths of string if necessary. Later, this will allow you to lift the hot dish out of the slow cooker more easily. Using the straps, lower the dish into the slow cooker. Pour boiling water into the pot so that it comes halfway up the side of the dish. Cover and cook on high for 3 to 3.5 hours or until the sponge is well risen and the sauce is bubbling aroung the edges.

4) Lift the dish out using the straps. Loosen the sides of the pudding and cover the dish with a plate large enough to catch the sauce. Invert and remove the souffle dish, Serve with ice-cream or cream.