Sim­mone Ed­win will wow you with her gourmet dish­es made sim­ple. In her week­ly col­umn, we will fea­ture her fan­cy-sound­ing but easy-peasy recipes. You will be able to wow your friends with im­pres­sive dish­es due to her per­fect­ly ex­plained and thor­ough tech­niques.

Sticky Tof­fee Pud­ding Pop­pers

Sticky tof­fee pud­ding is a British dessert that com­pris­es of a moist sponge and date cake that’s been smoth­ered in a tof­fee sauce. Chef Sim­mone adds ex­tra pizazz with a brandy but­ter sauce (yup, you heard that right) that takes this dessert to a whole new lev­el.

Yields: 8 to 10 serv­ings

Prep Time: 30 min­utes

Cook Time: 25 min­utes

To­tal Time: 55 min­utes

IN­GRE­DI­ENTS

3 cups chopped, dates

2 cups wa­ter

2 tea­spoons bak­ing so­da

3 cups all-pur­pose flour

2 tea­spoons bak­ing pow­der

1 tea­spoon sea salt

8 ounces but­ter

2 cups gran­u­lat­ed sug­ar

4 eggs

2 ta­ble­spoons vanil­la essence

For brandy but­ter sauce

1 cups light brown sug­ar

cup heavy cream

cup un­salt­ed but­ter

2 tea­spoons brandy

DI­REC­TIONS

1 For the sauce, add brown sug­ar and heavy cream to a heavy bot­tom sauce pot.

2 Al­low to come to a boil and let the sug­ar dis­solve com­plete­ly. Re­move from the stove when a light caramel colour is achieved.

3 Stir in but­ter and then brandy un­til smooth.

4 Pre­heat oven to 350°F. Grease cake pop pans and set aside.

5 Place chopped dates in a sauce pot and add the wa­ter and bak­ing so­da. Place on a low heat and al­low to cook un­til the wa­ter is ab­sorbed and the dates are soft­ened. Re­move from the stove and al­low to cool.

6 In a sep­a­rate bowl, sift to­geth­er the flour, bak­ing pow­der, and salt; set aside.

7 Cream to­geth­er the but­ter and sug­ar un­til light and fluffy. Grad­u­al­ly add the eggs un­til ab­sorbed in­to the but­ter and sug­ar. Be care­ful to not over­mix. Add vanil­la essence.

8 To the creamed mix­ture, al­ter­nate­ly add the date mix­ture and sift­ed dry in­gre­di­ents un­til a creamy cake bat­ter is formed.

9 Fill the cake pop pans with the bat­ter about of the way and bake for 15 min­utes or un­til a skew­er comes out clean when test­ed for done­ness.

10 Soak cake pop balls in the sauce and serve warm.