Improvised sticky date pudding

I haven’t written a recipe post for a while, but this one was too good to pass up. While my experiments in the kitchen don’t always turn out, I’m pretty happy this time.

I don’t like measuring usually and now that I don’t have a measuring cup, I basically guess everything. So please don’t ask for exact measurements.

I was tempted to try to make a sticky date pudding since I had just bought a huge pack of dates – the last few times I bought that many, I had never been able to finish all of it. A quick internet search showed recipes with tons of sugar and butter and heavy cream…so I decided to improvise with the custard cream I had left in the fridge. The instant custard cream I made two days ago was made with the custard cream power (basically corn starch and some flavourings?) and milk, no sugar.

The pudding came out so good I was seriously considering hiding it.

Somewhat Accurate Recipe

Dates, pitted – about 1 cup/200 g/two hand fulls

Custard cream – 1 cup (maybe a bit more?)

Flour – about ¾ cup

Eggs (smallish) – 2

Baking powder – 2 teaspoons

Water – about 1 cup

Make custard cream: buy the instant custard cream powder (I had never bought this back home, but they’re everywhere in Tanzania). Approximately 750 mL of milk with 3 heaped tablespoons. Don’t follow the instructions on the packaging because it only makes a very thin custard cream. Heat most of the milk up until it just starts boiling, take off the stove. Take some cold milk in a cup and mix well with the custard cream powder. Pour gradually into the heated milk and stir vigorously. It should set pretty fast. Leave it to cool down a bit.

Make the pudding: soak dates in water and 1 teaspoon of baking powder. Put on gentle fire to heat up and stir. Take off fire once boiling and water murky from dates. Puree with food blender/processor/one of the hand held mixing things. Add custard cream, eggs, and baking powder. Mix well. Fold in flour until incorporated. Pop into oven at approximately 175C and 25 min. Viola! Tasty amazingness without sugar nor butter.
I liked it so much I even took a photo.