Gluten-free, Vegan Sticky Toffee Pudding

I recently teased my brother, "Why can't you date women without any dietary restrictions?" His ex-wife is vegetarian. Others have had allergies. His current girlfriend is allergic to gluten and eggs and she was joining us for Thanksgiving.

Now I'm pretty used to cooking gluten-free now, but I have avoided doing the whole vegan thing. Not that egg allergies make you a vegan, but eggs are such an important part to baking, that I wasn't sure how well my recipes would do without them. 

I ended up making two desserts for her. One was this version of the sticky toffee pudding I had made a couple years ago.  It came out just as dense and moist as the original. My second recipe also came out well. Vegan baking isn't so hard after all!

Gluten-free Vegan Sticky Toffee Pudding

Ingredients

• 4 Tablespoons ground flax seed
• 12 Tablespoons water
• 3/4 cup dates, chopped
• 2 cups water
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 cup Earth Balance spread, room temperature
• 1 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 cup gluten-free flour
• 1 teaspoon xanthan gum

Cooking Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a springform pan and set aside.
2. In a small bowl, mix together flax seed and water. Let sit to gel.
3. Put the chopped dates, cinnamon sticks and water into a high-sided saucepan and bring to a boil. Let simmer while you prep the rest of the ingredients.
4. In a mixing bowl, use a hand blender to cream together the sugar and Earth Balance spread. Add the flax seed mixture, xanthan gum, and GF flour and blend until smooth.
5. By now the dates should be nicely softened and the water thickened. Remove the cinnamon sticks. Add the baking powder and be aware that it is going to foam up. Mix together and then pour the whole date mixture into the batter. Blend them together well.
6. Pour batter into springform pan. Bake for about 30 mins or until a cake tester (or toothpick) comes out clean. Poke holes into the cake using a skewer.
7. Take 1/2 c of toffee sauce and pour over cake so it will soak into the holes.
8. Cut and serve warm with additional toffee sauce on top.

Vegan Toffee Sauce
(from Vegetarian Cooking School) :

Ingredients

• 100 grams light corn syrup
• 200 grams light brown sugar
• 150 grams vegan margarine
• 100 ml soya cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Cooking Directions

1. To make the sauce: melt the syrup, margarine, sugar & vanilla essence in a small saucepan & simmer for 5 minutes without stirring. Leave to cool slightly & then stir in the soya cream. Prick the pudding all over & pour half the hot toffee sauce over the pudding.