Thursday, April 7, 2011

Old faithful


It's all about being creative in kitchen at our house at the moment.

I used to love making cakes, not just for us, but for school fetes, fundraisers and cake stalls but thought that had pretty much come to an end with the Child starting high school. Not so! When I received a note asking for contributions to an evening event at the school, I dug out the recipe for Old Faithful, that always went down a treat, literally, at primary school.

The first time I made it for public consumption the Child was in kindergarten. A parent bought it at a fete and then tracked me down to tell me how good it was after finding the Child's name and class on the bottom of the box.

It's a sticky date pudding cake with caramel icing, the recipe ripped from a magazine more than 10 years ago. I know not which one and as I've fiddled with the recipe a bit myself I offer it up light of heart and perhaps heavier of hip (after a slice or two. Try not licking the spoon when making the caramel icing. Impossible I tell you.).

I made two: one for the school and one for us as the Child is always disappointed if she misses out buying a piece of her own cake back. This way, she's guaranteed a slice in the lunchbox tomorrow.

Old Faithful
Sticky date pudding cake
  • 500g pitted dates, chopped
  • 1-1/4 cups boiling water
  • 3/4 tsp bicarb soda
  • 200g butter
  • 3/4 cup brown sugar
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1-1/2 cups flour
  • 3 tsps baking powder
  • 2 tsps cinnamon
Caramel icing
  • 75g butter
  • 4 tbsps cream
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1-1/2 cups icing sugar

Set oven to 175C.
Soak dates in boiling water and bicarb soda.
Grease and flour ring or bundt tin.
Beat sugar and butter till creamy.
Add eggs, one at a time.
Add vanilla.
Fold in dates.
Sift flour and cinnamon and fold in.
Bake around 40 mins.

For the icing, heat butter, cream, vanilla and sugar together until sugar is dissolved and then beat in sifted icing sugar until smooth. Dribble warm icing over cake.

See what others are up to in their creative spaces today here.

20 comments:

  1. Oh that looks too good! I've just put this in favourites and think we'll have a crack at it in the school holidays!
    Thanks for sharing!

    Jill @ Creating my way to Success
    http://www.jembellish.blogspot.com/

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  2. Ah! I have all those ingredients! I've just printed out your recipe and am looking forward to trying it. Thanks!

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  3. they look fantastic. thanks for sharing. thats a keeper

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  4. Bookmarked! I looooooove sticky date pudding, so this looks like a winner fo'shizzle!

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  5. Your husband has kindly brought some cake into the office for us.
    I can attest- is absolutely amazing and delicious. I have copied your recipe into my files. Thank you for sharing.

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  6. Looks like yum but as I am on a diet I think I will not look at it any more than I need to tummy is making noises just looking at it.

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  7. yum yum yum.
    i love it's your old faithful too xo

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  8. Wow, I wish I'd got a slice of that. Definitely on my 'to make' list, right at the top I think!

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  9. OMG! i am totally printing that out and trying one! Sticky date anything does it for me big time! Yum!

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  10. Yummy yummy. I baked a bit of a storm yesterday myself. Think that I will add your cake to my list of goodies though. Thanks for sharing.

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  11. That looks fantastic, I'll have to bookmark this so I can give it a try.

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  12. Love me some sticky date...going to bookmark this one for the hubby (who is the chef behind sticky date in this house :-P) to try out. Thanks so much for sharing!

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  13. Can I just check the amount of bicarb? I'm thinking it's 3/4 tsp? Am going to make this right now!

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  14. Oh, yum. Sticky date pudding is my fave pudding, I am sure I will love it in a cake, I am so making this!

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  15. Whoops, quite right Anna 3/4 tsp. Sorry about that! Have changed it in the recipe now

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  16. Made it. Love it. Didn't have cream so I used sour cream, and ran out of icing sugar so my icing (OMG AMAZING!) was a bit runnier... but yes, DELISH! Thanks so much.

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  17. I was wondering from the thumbnail at Kootoyoo, what this pretty cake was topped with... it looks delicious ! and I would love to have a similar mold, I will have to add this to my shopping list

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  18. Glad to hear it was successful, Anna!

    And thanks to all of you for your lovely comments. Much appreciated.

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  19. Oh my goodness that cake looks good enough to lick the computer screen :) Now, I'm not one for dates, but I can see how it would add a certain depth to the cake. I am bookmarking this recipe for sure!

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