Prue’s Sticky Date Cake

This is an old recipe of Prue’s, which I first made intending to drizzle it with caramel sauce, imagining it would be redolent of a rustic sticky toffee pudding. I couldn’t have been more wrong – when I tried the cake I immediately wanted to spread it thickly with cold salted butter, straight from the fridge. It’s a bit like malt loaf and is utterly delicious.