Sticky gingerbread pudding with toffee sauce

Method

• step 1

  Butter a 1.7 litre pudding basin. The basin should have a lid if it is the plastic sort or you’ll need to cover it with a sheet of buttered, pleated greaseproof paper covered with a sheet of foil, secured with string.

• step 2

  Roughly chop the stem ginger and put 1 tbsp in the base of the pudding basin. Set half the remaining ginger aside for the sauce and finely chop the rest.

• step 3

  To make the toffee sauce, gently melt the sugar and butter in a saucepan until the sugar has dissolved. Increase the heat and whisk in the syrup and ginger wine, bubble for a minute then add the remaining roughly chopped ginger and remove from the heat.

• step 4

  For the pudding, add the pecans to the pudding basin and spoon 3 tbsps of toffee sauce over. Beat the butter and brown sugar together until light and fluffy, add the eggs one by one, beating well between each addition, followed by the root ginger, the finely chopped stem ginger, ginger syrup and dates. Sift the flour and spices over and fold in. Spoon into the pudding basin. Cover and put in a large, lidded saucepan. Add enough boiling water to come halfway up the sides of the basin and put over a low heat. Cover and steam for 3 hours, topping the water up occasionally.

• step 5

  Remove from the saucepan and leave to cool for 5 minutes. Reheat the sauce, turn the pudding out onto a plate and serve with ice cream or cream and extra toffee sauce for pouring.