Easy recipes for any cook: from cheat's meals to cooking from scratch

Beef recipes

Tracy’s root vegetable tzimmes

40 minutes

Afternoon tea

My father’s kneidlach

20 minutes for 45g small kneidles and 25 minutes for 80g bigger kneidles

Ice cream

Aunty Irene’s Orly Whip Cassata

Braai recipes

Padda in die gat with peri-peri smoor

1 hour

One-pot wonder

One-pan sausage roast with fennel, apples and onions

35 minutes

Afternoon tea

Sticky toffee carrot cake pudding

30 minutes ¾ cup hot rooibos tea

Sticky toffee carrot cake pudding

Serves 4

Difficulty Easy

Prep Time 20 minutes

Cooking Time 30 minutes ¾ cup hot rooibos tea

Ingredients

¾ cup hot rooibos tea
200 g dates, pitted and chopped
1 t bicarbonate of soda
300 g cake wheat flour
2 cups grated carrots
100 g pecan nuts, toasted and chopped
1 T baking powder
1 t ground cinnamon
1 t ground ginger
1 t allspice
1 t salt
200 g softened butter
200 g treacle sugar
2 t vanilla extract
4 large free-range eggs

For the toffee sauce:

100 g butter
80 g treacle sugar
¼ cup golden syrup
1 cup fresh cream, room temperature
a pinch of sea salt, to taste

For serving:

vanilla ice cream
reserved toasted pecan nuts
toasted coconut flakes

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºC. Grease a 30 x 20 cm brownie tin, a cast-iron pan or flat potjie (the dish can be oval or rectangular).

2. Place the hot tea and dates into a small pot and bring to a simmer. Add the bicarb and allow it to foam, then cook for a minute or so until it stops foaming. Remove from the heat. Roughly mash with a fork, then set aside to cool.

3. Add the flour, carrots, pecan nuts (reserving a few to serve), baking powder, spices and salt to a mixing bowl. Whisk to combine, then tip into the wet ingredients. Add the mashed dates and fold in with a spatula until well combined, with no dry flour visible. Pour the batter into the baking tin. Smooth the top, then pop it into the oven for 25 minutes.

4. To make the sauce, melt the butter, sugar and syrup in a small pot. Whisk in the cream and bring to a boil. Simmer for 5 minutes, or until the sauce turns a rich caramel colour. Season with salt and remove from the heat.

5. While the pudding is still hot, prick it all over with a toothpick and pour over half the caramel sauce. Allow to stand for a few minutes to absorb the sauce. Serve the pudding with vanilla ice cream, the reserved pecan nuts and toasted coconut flakes. Drizzle over the remaining sauce.

Find more pudding recipes here

Extracted with permission from "The Good Stuff" by Karl Tessendorf and published by Penguin Random House South Africa.

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Sticky toffee carrot cake pudding

Sticky toffee carrot cake pudding

Ingredients

Method