Prune & Chinese Five Spice Sticky Toffee Pudding with Miso Butterscotch Sauce

Hello and welcome to Newsletter No 7 here on Substack! Thank you for stopping by. Grab a seat if you are interested in recipes as well as tips and tricks to make the most of our increasingly eclectic pantries - and make sure you hit that subscribe button if you don’t want to miss any future posts!

We renovated our kitchen a couple of years ago. And while playing around in the kitchen is easily my number one passion, after one too many months of eating take-out and one pan meals prepared in our little makeshift living room kitchen consisting of not much more than a single hot plate, it actually took me a bit of time to find my groove again once our beautiful new kitchen was installed. So I forced myself to start cooking and baking again by inviting friends over for dinner. And that is how I also came up with the recipe for today’s newsletter. 

There was a late summer Italian-inspired dinner with my friend Hannelore featuring a salad with rucola, figs, mozzarella di bufala and prosciutto di San Daniele with pillowy homemade spelt focaccia, spaghetti alla chitarra with beautiful vongole from my favourite fishmonger and to finish, wobbly corn panna cotta with blueberry compote, all washed down with a nice bottle of Fiano. 

A few weeks later we had my friend Camille over to catch up over Grapefruit Mezcal sours, Tuna and Coconut Ceviche, Guacamole and Tortilla chips, followed by Cuban Ropa Vieja with rice and beans and, to finish a coconut Tres Leches cake with fresh passion fruit. 

And our friends Ana and Viktor joined us for a Middle East inspired dinner featuring phyllo-wrapped feta parcels drizzled with za’atar honey, Reem Kassis’ Manti on garlic yoghurt with a fresh tomato relish and Aleppo chili butter, and a carrot cake with saffron, mahleb and cardamom with a labneh frosting. 

And as temperatures continued to drop our friends Miki and Gijs joined us for a vegetarian dinner featuring Sqirl’s “Kabbouleh” with Sourdough Bread and Miso-Walnut-Date compound butter, Ottolenghi’s outrageously good Spicy Mushroom Lasagne (the most phenomenal vegetarian lasagne I have ever eaten) and, to finish, the Prune Sticky Toffee Pudding with Chinese Five Spice Powder, Miso Butterscotch Sauce and Vanilla ice cream you see pictured here. 

As I discovered writing this post, I am clearly not the first person to make Sticky Toffee Pudding with prunes instead of the more common dates. But after sharing my own version of a Prune Sticky Toffee Pudding I hopefully won’t be the last either! Because prunes are a brilliant alternative to dates in Sticky Toffee Pudding - like dates they become beautifully soft once soaked in hot water and give the sponge this gorgeous velvety yet bouncy and beautifully moist crumb. Where dates are mellow and caramel like in flavour, prunes bring some fruitiness and a tiny bit of acidity which works well with the rich sponge and even richer Miso Butterscotch Sauce. And the whole thing becomes even more delicious with a generous helping of warming Chinese five spice powder in the sponge. 

A mix of cinnamon, cloves, fennel seeds, Sichuan peppercorns and star anise, Chinese five spice powder is what makes Peking duck so delicious. And while it's more commonly used in savoury cooking, none of Chinese Five Spice Powder’s ingredients speak against using it in baking or desserts. Those Sichuan peppercorns you might ask? They are great actually because they provide a bit of heat - a welcome addition to any fall baking or desserts made with apples, pears, plums, quince and/or dried fruit.

And while I cannot take credit for the idea of a Miso Butterscotch Sauce, I am here to spread its gospel. If you like salted butter caramel, you will adore any sort of Miso and caramelised sugar concoction. If you are wondering why you should add Miso to your Butterscotch Sauce when you could just reach for salt, here is why: Miso provides a more mellow saltiness than using plain salt and also has a much more complex flavour profile. Just try it and maybe start with a white Miso (also known as Shiro Miso) which, thanks to a shorter fermentation time, is mellower in flavour than some of the darker Miso variants. 

Prune & Chinese Five Spice Sticky Toffee Pudding with Miso Butterscotch Sauce 

Note: Makes 6-7 individual Sticky Toffee Puddings or a large one in a brownie pan serving 6-8. The Miso Butterscotch Sauce might make more than you need (depending on how greedy everyone is!) but any leftovers will keep in the fridge for about a week and are amazing poured over ice cream, rice pudding or even stirred into your coffee.

Ingredients

Sticky Toffee Pudding 

225g prunes, chopped
175ml boiling water
175g all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp Chinese five spice powder
140g sugar
85g butter, melted
2 eggs
100ml milk

Miso Butterscotch Sauce

175g light brown sugar (or a 50/50 mix of caster sugar and brown sugar)
50g butter
225ml cream, divided
1-2 tbsp white Miso (to taste) 

To serve: The Miso Butterscotch Sauce is already plenty. Beyond that the options are endless - you can never go wrong with a drizzle of single cream or some vanilla ice cream, but whipped creme fraiche is also great, its slight tartness cutting through the richness of this dessert. 

Directions

Pre-heat the oven to 180C / 160C fan. Grease a brownie pan or 6-7 individual ramekins with a capacity of ca. 200ml with butter and set aside. 

For the Sticky Toffee Pudding start by pouring the boiling water over the chopped prunes and set aside to soak for 15 minutes. Puree the prunes with their soaking liquid until smooth. 

In a bowl whisk together the flour with the baking soda and Chinese five spice powder.

In a separate bowl whisk together the sugar with the melted butter until combined. Beat in the eggs one by one. Stir in the milk. Fold in the dry ingredients. Lastly add the pureed prunes. Whisk until you have a smooth batter.

Pour the batter into your pan (or the individual ramekins) and bake for ca. 40 minutes or until a wooden skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean (individual Sticky Toffee Puddings should only need around 20-25 minutes). 

While the Sticky Toffee Pudding is baking, prepare the Miso Butterscotch Sauce. In a medium saucepan bring the sugar, butter and half the cream to a boil. Cook for 2-3 mins or until the sugar is melted and the sauce is toffee coloured. Take off the heat and whisk in the Miso and the rest of the cream.

To serve, place one portion of Sticky Toffee Pudding on a plate and pour over a generous amount of Miso Butterscotch Sauce. 

Note the Sticky Toffee Pudding is easily reheated in the Microwave - 30-60 seconds at full power should do the trick (any longer and the sugar in the sponge risks burning). Same goes for the Miso Butterscotch Sauce.