Eating Scotland and Sticky Toffee Date Pudding @LucyBurdette #recipe

"And still the warm round peach pie and the cool yellow cream we ate together that August night live in our hearts' palates, succulent, secret, delicious." M.F.K. Fisher, The Gastronomical Me


LUCY BURDETTE: For me, one of the best parts of traveling is sampling the local food, which becomes a taste memory. Smoked pimento takes me to southern France, tempura to a restaurant in Kyoto, salted caramel to Australia, pimento cheese and vinegar barbecue to North Carolina.

Today I'll take you on a whirlwind tour of some of the taste sensations-soon to be taste memories-from our recent trip, and end with a recipe for sticky toffee date pudding, which frequently found a place on our group's table. (Fortunately, the tour involved a lot of walking so we managed to work off some of the extra calories.)

We started in Dublin with a traditional Irish breakfast. I'm going to dream about this for years to come...

These were the specialty cocktails at Mulberry Garden in Dublin. The one with the flower was a passion fruit rum punch, and the green was simply spectacular--including cucumber liqueur, Hendrick's gin, and black pepper:

This we ate in the village of Moffat in Scotland, it's called coronation chicken (curry) served here on a baked potato:

A common dish was fish and chips, served with mushy peas:

Many, many scones were eaten; one particular stand-out was a banana-date version but the cheese were wonderful too...often paired with a creamy vegetable soup:

In the van hurtling between destinations, we were introduced to a Scottish candy called "tablet" which is basically butter, cream and sugar. We ate it until we were sick:

And I became obsessed with the cheese plates offered as a dessert alternative (ditto, ate until sick...):

This was the closest I personally got to haggis--it's a statue at Robert Burns' birthplace and it's called "haggis." We dubbed the photo "three men and a haggis."

And here are two traditional Scottish desserts, the taller one is called Cranachan (whipped cream, honey, toasted oats, and whiskey), and the other was the group favorite--sticky toffee date pudding:

Are you feeling a little peckish? Here's my pared-down, elegant and luscious version of the sticky toffee date pudding. Don't skip the caramel sauce!

Ingredients

3/4 cups pitted, quartered dates
3/4 cups water
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
2 tbsp white sugar
2 eggs
1 cup flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

 
For Sticky Toffee Sauce:
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup cream
2 tbsp unsalted butter
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

In a small saucepan, place the dates, water and vanilla and bring to a boil. Simmer until soft (might take 5 minutes.) Remove from the heat, add the baking soda, mix well. Let the mixture cool. Meanwhile... 
Cream butter with sugars. Beat in the eggs. Add the dry ingredients, and finally the cooled date mixture. (Do not worry about leaving little chunks of dates--they will provide some nice texture.) Pour the batter into a well-buttered cake pan. (I also added a layer of parchment paper and buttered that for good measure.) Bake at 350 about 40-50 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. Turn the cake out onto a platter. 

For the sauce, mix brown sugar, cream, butter in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and simmer until thick, about 5 to 7 minutes. Remove from heat and add a splash of vanilla. 






Poke holes in the cake and pour the sauce overall. 










Serve warm if possible, with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

Do you have a food memory from a trip you've loved? 

And just for fun, look at this photo I found buried in my files...circa 1969, Lucy performing with fellow Highlander dancers from Governor Livingston Regional High School:

I guess the Scottish Highland is in my blood...