Dessert experiment

Ever since we were in Ireland last February, R has been on my case about recreating a sticky toffee pudding, a dessert he sampled SEVERAL times during our trip. He hearts toffee. He hearts cake. And lately, he's taken quite a shine to candy-making type ventures, so he was quite excited at the prospect of making a new dessert. So, we went to the ol' Food Network website and found us a recipe. First, you make a cake. A v. pale cake. Very pale. You are supposed to put dates in the cake. Dates are gross, as are most dried fruit. Ick. Dates do not have a place in my life. Except dinner dates. Haha, a little joke. Regardless, perhaps the dates would have added more color to a very blah looking cake. Anyways, you bake this blah little cake until it is firmly set. Meanwhile, you make the star of the show, a sticky toffee topping. Boil brown sugar, cream, and butter. Once cake is done, you pour a portion of this toffee over the hot cake, then broil said cake. You can see a photo of the cake post-broiler. You then serve the broiled cake with whipped cream or ice cream and the remaining hot toffee sauce.

I must say, I was not thrilled with the cake bit. It was a bit vanilla-y and eggy for my taste (despite only having one egg). A bit moist, if you will. I wasn't sure I liked the dish at all on bites one and two. However - the bites that were only ice cream with hot toffee sauce...now THOSE were something to write home about. When the hot toffee sauce hits the cold ice cream, some of the sauce hardens into chewy toffee, whilst some of it remains hot and molten, melting the ice cream (wait, I'm sounding like Nigella). THAT was delish. The cake I'm rather "eh" about. R enjoyed the cake as well, but was dishearted by the light color. He wants perhaps to try a recipe given to us by Miss M hailing from Mr. Jamie Oliver. It included a number of odd ingredients, so we'll see. I just didn't like the eggyness. He didn't like the paleness. We must renew our efforts towards perfection.