My perfect birthday cake

What would you say if I told you that I have found a most delicious birthday treat, which is also gluten free?  Yes it is indeed true!

Thanks to Hemsley and Hemsley, a family run business based in London who make organic homemade foods, I have managed to find the most delicious recipe for a sticky toffee pudding.  They have eliminated all the gluten, wheat and refined sugar from the usual ingredient list for this pudding, but have also managed to replace these with equally delicious ingredients to balance things out. 

Here is the sticky toffee pudding cake in all it's perfection!

Ingredients (use organic ingredients where possible)
Serves 8-12 people

Pudding250g Medjool dates, pitted and roughly chopped
1¼ teaspoon baking soda
200ml boiling water
100g butter (room temperature/soft)
200g ground almonds
3 medium eggs
20g coconut flour
Optional: pinch of ground cloves

Sauce50g butter
100g dates
300-400ml boiling water

Instructions

• Use butter to grease a ceramic baking dish or line with parchment paper
• Soak the dates in the hot water and baking soda and leave to soften for 10 minutes
• Place the dates and their liquid into a food processor with the butter and ground almonds, and process until smooth
• Add the eggs and ground cloves and sieve in the coconut flour. Process again until creamy
• Pour the mixture into the prepared dish and bake for 45 minutes at 170C or until cooked through. You might need to cover the top with parchment paper if it starts to look too brown after 35 minutes. The pudding will slump slightly when it comes out of the oven
• To make the sauce, don't bother rinsing the food processor. Again, soak the dates in the boiling water before blending with the butter. Process just the dates and butter and then slowly add the soak water until your sauce is as smooth as possible. You can thin it with a touch more water and leave it warm or heat in a saucepan
• Blend the wet ingredients into the dry. Chop the dates as best you can for a lovely chunky texture to the pudding. For the sauce use a good quality maple syrup like Vertmont instead of the dates
  
  To serve: Dish up the hot pudding and pour over the sauce and, for extra extravagance, add some organic crème fraiche.

I can't wait to try this!  Sticky toffee pudding is one of my favourite puddings, so to find an organic one like this one is a bonus.

xx