Sometimes, waiting for a cake to cool feels like torture. So when a recipe tells you to serve it warm, it brings a little joy to my heart to know that the time from oven to tummy is minimal. This is one of those cakes. A super-soft, brown-sugar sponge that, at first glance, I’ll admit, looks like a classic sticky-toffee pudding. What makes it different, however, is the spiced caramel sauce that gets swirled into the batter and poured on top. Heavy with cloves, cinnamon, cardamom and ginger, it incorporates all of my favourite spices and makes for a hug in a bowl.
Spiced caramel pudding
Prep 10 min
Steep 40 min+
Cook 1 hr
Serves 6-8
For the cake
150g unsalted butter, softened
100g light brown sugar
100g dark brown sugar
2 eggs
250g plain flour
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
¼ tsp ground cloves
¼ tsp freshly grated nutmeg
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
1½ tsp baking powder
A pinch of salt
200ml milk
For the spiced caramel
300ml double cream
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
20g fresh ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
12 cardamom pods, lightly crushed
3 cinnamon sticks
10 cloves
¼ tsp fresh grated nutmeg
200g caster sugar
50g unsalted butter, softened
½ tsp sea salt
To make the caramel, put the cream, vanilla and spices in a small saucepan and heat gently until steaming. Take off the heat, cover and leave to steep for at least 40 minutes (the longer, the better). Strain into a jug when you’re ready to use.
Heat the oven to 190C (170C fan)/375F/gas 5, and grease a medium baking dish with butter.
In a second saucepan, heat the caster sugar on a medium heat until melted and deep amber in colour; give it a stir every now and then, to make sure it’s melting evenly. Add the softened butter and whisk quickly – the mixture will bubble up quite rapidly (and will be extremely hot, so be careful). Once the butter is combined, slowly add the infused cream, whisking as you go, then take off the heat, stir in the sea salt and set aside.
To make the cake batter, in a large bowl beat the butter and both sugars until pale and creamy, then add the eggs one at a time, mixing in well after each addition.
In a second bowl, mix the flour, spices, bicarb, baking powder and salt, then add half of this to the butter mixture and stir until just combined. Mix in the milk, followed by the rest of the dry mix.
Pour the batter into the greased dish and swirl in two tablespoons of the spiced caramel. Bake for 40-45 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
To serve, cut up portions of the warm cake and pour over lots of the spiced caramel; a scoop of ice-cream on the side is always good.
