This is such a warming dessert, perfect for a cosy afternoon or an evening under the blankets. We love a pud that gives us one our five a day too, so we used crunchy Jazz apples in this recipe to help us fend off any colds – important at this time of year! You’ll love the sticky toffee dribbled over the top and if you have any spare you can add it to ice cream or other desserts.

Ingredients

For the Cake:

2 Jazz Apples (2 grated )

180g of soft dates (soak if too dry to begin with)

2 tsp Vanilla extract

4 large eggs

250g Self-raising flour

2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Half a bar of MIA Dark Chocolate (chopped into chunks) – the full bar if you want to dribble it on top too!

Butter or cooking spray to grease the tin

For the Toffee Sauce:

2 cups of coconut sugar

3 cups of butter

1 tsp of vanilla extract

Pinch of Salt

Method

For the cake:

1. Preheat your oven to 180c and grease a 30cm x 20cm cake tin with butter or baking spray. Add baking paper to stop it sticking.
2. Next put the dates and grated apples in a pan with 300ml of water and bring to a simmer, cover and cook for 10 minutes longer until softened.
3. Once cooled add to a mixer, adding the vanilla essence and blending until smooth.
4. Then move this to a mixing bowl, stirring in the egg yolks. Sift in the flour, bicarbonate of soda and dark chocolate. If you cut the dark chocolate into chunks it will melt into the mixture.
5. In a separate bowl whisk the egg whites, then carefully fold these into mixing bowl until you have one cake mixture.
6. Add this mixture to the prepared tin and bake for 30 minutes. Check the middle is cooked with a knife or skewer.
7. Once cooked remove from the oven and leave to cool. Next you can add the toffee sauce.

For the Toffee Sauce:

1. Do this just before serving. On a medium heat bring the butter and coconut sugar to a boil stirring vigorously. When the mixture starts to boil, time 8 minutes and keep stirring. At the end of this time it will be fluffy with lots of bubbles – now’s the time to serve it!
2. You can either poke holes in your cake mixture or simple pour over the top. We cut up slices of apple too and baked these in the oven for a delish chewy finish.

A warm, rich pudding perfect for a winter’s day.