Second Helpings #16 Sticky Toffee with Miso Butterscotch Sauce
Traditional Pudding With Not So Traditional Sauce
Hello Everyone!
Can we talk about the weather for a second? I know that might seem stereotypically English of me, but I swear it felt like we lived through a week where every season has reared its head and made a play for dominance. Winter creeped back in and the temperature dropped massively, it started to snow and, on every morning walk with Wesley, there was frost on the cars and ice on the ground. Because of the wintery shift, and with friends coming over this weekend, I planned a decidedly wintery dessert to close out our evening, a classic sticky toffee with a not so classic miso butterscotch sauce. On checking the forecast the day before, when I had already made the dessert, the weather took a step towards spring. Normally I would welcome the sunshine, and the lack of bitter winds, with open arms, but I have a wintery dessert to serve. Thankfully, as a brit, I have been socialised, through decades of pub lunches, that not only is sticky toffee pudding a perfect winter dessert it’s basically a year round treat. So serve the dessert I shall.
For this version of the STP I went with dates, as is classic, but baked the pudding in a straight sided loaf pan, to give the slices a nice pleasing symmetry. To add a little extra crunch I greased the pan first with softened butter and then coated the butter in demerara sugar. When the pudding came out of the oven, the sugar will have melted onto the outside of the pudding and created a crisp sugary coating. I wanted to boost this even more. So whilst the pudding was still warm I sprinkled the whole thing with a little more demarara so it had a nice bedazzled look.
The butterscotch sauce was made in the traditional manner where butter, sugar and vanilla are cooked together for a few minutes before cream is added, to make a beautiful sauce. The difference here is a little miso is added to make a tangy salted butterscotch sauce. The tang of the miso goes wonderfully with the STP especially when paired with some really good vanilla ice cream.
Links and Things
A new bakery is coming to London! The wonderful Anna Higham, formally the head baker at Flor and executive pastry chef at the River Cafe, Anna is opening Quince Bakery in Islington, with an aim to open this summer. You can support the bakeries crowd funding here, with some wonderful rewards on offer. I went for the year of Jam.
The depressing news that, across the pond, Girl Scout Cookies are the latest food product to be hit by supply chain woes. If someone can send me a box of Mint Thins and Adventurefuls I would be very grateful
Felicity Cloake’s excellent ‘How to cook the perfect…’ column in the Guardian tackled Portuguese custard tarts, and now all I want is a flight to Lisbon and some custard tarts from Manteigaria, the best custard tarts I have ever had.
Karens Diner, the honestly baffling restaurant concept where staff are purposefully rude to you, is opening a hotel in London. They will have a restaurant in the Barnet hotel but for those who want the same experience but in a hotel room "What you might experience in the restaurant won't be improved upstairs.”
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