As the pandemic created a massive Banana Bread craze, I decided one day to turn my Banana Bread Bouji….I honestly am not a fan of Banana Bread but liveeeee for Sticky Toffee Pudding and for some reason always make it vegan! Since so many of you asked for it, I decided I better share the recipe!

Few things to note:

• I use Omani dates which are really sweet so I was able to get away with using little to no sugar. If yours aren’t you can use normal sugar or coconut if you would like to keep it healthy.

• I made mine in individual pots but feel free to make one big one.

• You can make these in about 3-4 ramekins or I also do it in a Square tin (7.5inches x 7.5inches)

Hope you all enjoy getting sticky with this!

Ingredients:

Sponge

• 120g pitted dates (Extra 50g if you don’t want too much sugar)

• 350ml Coconut Milk (You can use any nut milk of your choice)

• 2 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda

• 100g dairy-free butter or 100ml of Vegetable/Coconut Oil

• 1.5 Medium Ripe Bananas

• 100g Light Brown Sugar or Coconut Sugar

• 180g self-raising flour

• 1 tsp Ground Cardamom

• ½ tsp Ground Nutmeg

• 1 tsp Vanilla Extract

Sticky Toffee Sauce

• 110g Dates

• 250ml coconut milk

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 35g Light Brown Sugar or Coconut Sugar

• Squeeze of Lemon

Method:

Sponge

1. Heat your oven to 180°c and grease your chosen dish.

2. Add your bananas to your milk and blitz till smooth (I much prefer this to mashing as I like the banana thin with no lumps).

3. Add your banana milk to a saucepan with the dates, vanilla and sugar and place on a medium to high heat to soften the dates.

4. Once the dates have soften and broken down a little (after about 10mins), remove from the heat and stir in your bicarb and it should begin to foam up ( make sure you’re not using a small pan).

5. Leave to settle for about 5 minutes and then add butter or oil.

6. In a separate bowl add your flour, cardamom & nutmeg then pour the date mixture over, whisk and fold in without over working the batter. You just want to make sure there are no flour lumps.

7. Leave the date pieces in the fixture, they will create gooey goodness in the sponge!

8. Pour your mixture into your dish and bake for 30 minutes or until it has risen and a skewer comes out clean (I check mine after 20).

Sticky Toffee Sauce

1. Place all the ingredients into a saucepan and allow to simmer for roughly 15-20 minutes till your dates have broken down.

2. By the end your sauce should have thickened and be smooth.

3. If you have any small bits from the dates you can always blitz it at the end.