Ingredients

• 220 g pitted Medjool datessoft Medjool for the fudgiest sponge; dry pressed dates need twenty minutes' soaking
• 250 ml boiling water
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 90 g unsalted buttersoftened
• 150 g dark brown soft sugar
• 2 eggslarge, at room temperature
• 180 g self-raising flour
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

For sauce

• 100 g unsalted butterfor the sauce
• 160 g dark muscovado sugardark muscovado, not light brown; the molasses is what makes it almost smoky
• 250 ml double cream
• 1/2 tsp flaky sea salt
• 100 g pecan halvesraw
• 25 g unsalted butterfor browning with the pecans

Method

1. 01

   Soak the dates

   Put the chopped dates in a heatproof bowl, pour over the boiling water and stir in the bicarbonate of soda. It will foam up briefly, which is exactly what you want. Leave for 10 minutes (20 if your dates are dry and firm) until the fruit has swollen and collapses when pressed against the side of the bowl with a spoon.

   220 g pitted Medjool dates · 250 ml boiling water · 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

2. 02

   Mash, don't puree

   Mash the dates and their soaking liquid roughly with a fork or pulse three or four times in a blender. You want a coarse, lumpy mixture with recognisable pieces of date still in it. Blitzed completely smooth, they dissolve into the sponge and you lose the fudgy pockets that make this pudding what it is. Set aside to cool to lukewarm.

   Deliberately too much sauceIt keeps three weeks in the fridge and is worth having in the door.

3. 03

   Heat the oven and line the tin

   Heat the oven to 180C fan / 200C conventional. Butter a 20 x 25 cm baking tin, or a 23 cm square, and line the base with parchment.

4. 04

   Cream the base

   Beat the softened butter with the dark brown sugar for 3-4 minutes with an electric whisk, scraping down twice, until noticeably lighter in colour and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating for 30 seconds after each. If it looks curdled, add a tablespoon of the flour and keep going. It will come back together.

   90 g unsalted butter · 150 g dark brown soft sugar · 2 eggs

   Better on the second dayPour over a few spoonfuls of sauce, then reheat at 160 C fan for 15-20 minutes.

5. 05

   Fold and bake

   Fold in the warm date mixture, the self-raising flour and 1 tsp vanilla with a large spatula until just combined. The batter will look alarmingly loose and wet, which is correct. Pour into the tin and bake for 30-35 minutes, until the top springs back when pressed in the centre and a skewer comes out with a few moist crumbs but no raw batter. Start checking at 28 minutes; overbaked sticky toffee goes dry and no amount of sauce will save it.

   180 g self-raising flour

6. 06

   Make the toffee sauce

   Melt the butter with the 160 g muscovado in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring until the sugar has dissolved and no grains remain on the back of the spoon. Pour in the 250 ml cream, bring to a gentle simmer and cook for 4-5 minutes, stirring, until it has thickened enough to coat a spoon and turned glossy and deep brown. Stir in the flaky salt off the heat and taste. It should be just on the edge of too salty when eaten alone, which is right once it meets the sponge.

   100 g unsalted butter · 250 ml double cream · 1/2 tsp flaky sea salt

7. 07

   Brown-butter the pecans

   Melt the butter in a small frying pan over medium heat and let it foam and then quieten, swirling, for about 3 minutes until the milk solids turn hazelnut brown and it smells nutty. Add the pecans immediately and toast in the brown butter for 2-3 minutes, stirring constantly, until they are fragrant and a shade darker. Tip onto a plate. Left in the hot pan they will keep cooking and turn bitter. Spoon a tablespoon of the brown butter from the pan into the toffee sauce and stir it through.

   25 g unsalted butter · 100 g unsalted butter

8. 08

   Soak the sponge

   While the pudding is still hot in its tin, pierce it all over with a skewer, about thirty holes, and pour over roughly a third of the hot sauce. Leave for 5 minutes to drink it in. You will see the surface darken as it goes. This is what makes the sponge sticky rather than merely cakey; a pudding sauced only at the table is a different, lesser thing.

   For individual puddingsEight buttered 175 ml moulds, 20-22 minutes instead of 35.

9. 09

   Serve

   Cut into 8 squares and serve hot, with more hot sauce poured over at the table, a scatter of the brown-butter pecans and something cold alongside. Vanilla ice cream, or lightly whipped cream with a little vanilla. The contrast of temperature is half the pleasure.