vegan, gluten-free, cakes & breads, paleo, fruit-sweetened, oil-free, sweet · November 15, 2018

Medjool Date Sticky Toffee Pudding

Medjool Date Sticky Toffee Pudding – a healthier spin on this sweet holiday dessert with a rich grain-free sponge cake soaked in the easiest blender toffee sauce!

THIS POST IS SPONSORED BY NATURAL DELIGHTS®

It’s not that I’m trying to skip over Thanksgiving. Its just that the moment Medjool Date Sticky Toffee Pudding entered my life, I knew I needed to share it with you as soon as possible.

Maybe it is a little more appropriate for Christmas than for a week before Thanksgiving. But we’re already breaking all the rules by making it without butter or refined sugar or grains, so may as well just eat it whenever we want too. And trust me, that time is NOW.

When I think of pudding I think of creamy and chocolate. Actually the first thing I think of is plastic cups layered chocolate-vanilla-chocolate and my middle school cafeteria. But this is a pudding very unlike either of those.

Let your imagination feast on this: rich, grain-free caramel sponge cake with flecks of Medjool dates throughout generously drizzled with the easiest no-cook toffee sauce so it soaks into every cake-y crevasse to create a deliciously moist, slightly dense, cake-meets-pudding perfect bite.

I’ve never had anything quite like it before. The British certainly know what they’re doing when it comes to holiday desserts. Even if I’ve put my own not-so-traditional spin on it.

I love sneaking Medjool dates in to sweeten recipes they aren’t typically used in, but in this case Medjool dates are already a key ingredient in sticky toffee pudding. Where we are veering from tradition is by using only Medjool dates to sweeten (no added sugar!) and keeping the whole thing vegan and paleo with a surprisingly simple list of ingredients too.

We’ve got:

Medjool dates. I recommend Natural Delights® Medjool dates since they are always perfectly fresh and sweet. I used the organic pitted variety for this recipe because hello EXTRA easy.
Water or brewed coffee. Coffee makes for a deeper richer flavor, but it’s up to you. Either way it needs to be HOT to soak and soften the dates.
Baking soda.
Cashew butter. Or almond butter. Or even tahini could be delicious here.
Vanilla.
Lemon juice. Or apple cider vinegar.
Coconut flour. But don’t worry these aren’t weird and crumbly like coconut flour stuff can sometimes be because of…
Tapioca starch.
Salt. Very important in all caramel-y things.

And the toffee sauce is almost too easy – just Medjool dates blended with full-fat coconut milk and a little salt and vanilla for flavor. And yes you will want to drink it with a straw.

I baked my cute little cakes into mini bundts, but you could use a muffin pan instead. Or even sticky toffee pudding donuts sounds good to me…no rules here.

Bake. Flip. Toffee drown. And devour!

If you wanted to vote pecan pie off the Thanksgiving ~~island~~ table and replace it with Medjool Date Sticky Toffee Pudding, I would 100% support that decision. And after one bite I’m pretty sure your family would be very fine with it too.

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