With its vintage flavours and endless deliciousness, this is a pudding for the ages

Serve warm with warm butterscotch sauce and cream or ice-cream — or both

This dessert is a classic. Photography: Leon Schoots

This classic 80s-90s dessert never goes out of style.

Try too my lavender scones and pot-roast chicken.

Chef Annie Smithers. Picture: Eugene Hyland

Naughty but nice: sticky date pudding.
Photography: Leon Schoots

Sticky date pudding

Ingredients

• 280g pitted dates, coarsely chopped
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 250ml boiling water
• 80g unsalted butter, softened
• 40g brown sugar
• 2 eggs, at room temperature
• 185g plain flour
• 1½ teaspoons baking powder
• Thickened cream, or vanilla ice-cream, to serve, optional

Butterscotch sauce

• 200g brown sugar
• 375ml thickened cream
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
• 70g unsalted butter

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 160C (fan-forced). Grease and line a 20cm square cake tin with baking paper, allowing excess to hang over the sides. Tip the dates into a heatproof bowl and sprinkle with the bicarbonate of soda. Pour over the boiling water and let stand for 10 minutes, then drain and mash well with a potato masher.
2. Place the butter and sugar in a bowl and beat until smooth and combined. Beat in the eggs. Add the flour and sprinkle the baking powder over the top; mix until the flour is incorporated. Add the mashed dates and mix quickly into the batter. Pour the batter into the tin and smooth the top. Bake for 35 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.
3. To make the butterscotch sauce, place all the ingredients in a saucepan over medium heat and allow the butter to melt. Stir, then bring to a simmer and cook for 2 minutes, stirring once. Remove from heat.
4. Use the paper overhang to lift the cake out of the tin. Serve warm with the warm butterscotch sauce and cream or ice-cream or both. Serves 8

This is an edited extract from Kitchen Sentimental by Annie Smithers.