Chris Inglis' Sticky Date Pudding with Pear and Ginger

When I was 6 years old the Riley family moved into the house across from us in Auckland, New Zealand. It was as exciting as a flash of magnesium.

I can’t put it any better than my father who, when thinking about the Riley home, wrote “all I can do is recount stories of a lost civilization straight from H. Rider Haggard. How Margarette fished out a drowned cat from their pool, Robin cooking 3 sheep, a boar and 5 turkeys on a barbecue he brought back from Texas, Molly's sweet potato in orange skins and cassis jelly. The butchering of Bill Gates and his dreadful computer operating system.”

One of my father’s main contributions to all this was his infamous sticky date cake. He started making it in 1990 when Suzy and I were 10 and he has been making it ever since. Still going strong, this blog is its latest incarnation...

Sticky Date Pudding with pear and ginger

Cake
20 pitted dates, diced and fresh are nice
1.25 cups of water
1 teaspoon baking soda
60g of butter
1 cup of brown sugar
2 eggs
1.5 cups of self-raising flour
1 heaped teaspoon ground ginger
2 pears peeled, cored and cut into slices

Place dates, water and baking soda in a pot large enough to take all the mixture
Boil 5 minutes and remove from heat
Stir in chopped up butter until melted
Mix in sugar and eggs

Fold in flour, ginger and pear slices and pour mixture into cake tin lined with baking paper.
Bake at 180 deg C for 60 mins.

Caramel sauce
3 tablsp water
1 cup white sugar
2 tblsp golden syrup
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 cup of cream

Heat water, sugar, golden syrup and vanilla in a pot until sugar dissolves.
Bring to a fast boil for about 2 mins. Add cream and boil for another 2-3 mins
until slightly thickened. Sauce will keep in the fridge for several days.