Sticky Date Sauce {Oh Yes!}

Pour this sticky date sauce liberally over everything and anything. Sticky toffee pudding, ice cream, bananas or apples, this date sauce is made a lot here. It's quick and easy, uses Real food ingredients and stores well, so no excuses not to have some on hand for when those sweet moments strike :)

Sticky Date Sauce

As many people will know, when you start eating Clean you need to have a few things on hand for those times when you want something sweet. Or the kids rather (ahem..) want something sweet. Sticking to a Clean eating diet for the main part at least in my family, means not depriving anyone of the things they like. It's about finding better alternatives and substitutes that hit the spot. That's what makes Real food eating work.

Enter this Sticky Date Sauce! If you read my blog you'll know we're pretty huge date fans here. I use them all the time as a sweetener to replace the refined sugars we used to eat, they work brilliantly in baking and I usually have a jar of this date paste in the fridge.

I should probably mention right now that we don't have sugars, including dates, every day like we did before. Pre Clean eating I wasn't especially good at looking at what the kids or us were eating, I vaguely kept track, sort of, but I'd say no to a cake bar and say yes to a branded yogurt without realising they had almost the same amounts of refined white sugar in them.

I thought I was doing an okay job. I wasn't!

These days we certainly enjoy sweet treats but they're just that: Treats. As this is the case, I want them to be good and I promise you this date sauce is one of those things you can hardly believe is a real food recipe. Luckily for us it is, so if you'd like to try a kinds toffee-ish, sweet, caramel-y sorta sauce, this might just be the one for you.

And of course it helps that it takes next to no time at all and of the time it does take, most of it is spent leaving the dates to soften in boiling water!

Ingredients

The ingredients list isn't long. I like to use god quality ingredients, I find the results are better and you end up needing to use less, which offsets the slight price increase.

Dates

I always have dates in the house. Everyone loves them and they're really versatile in baking, and in my opinion make one of my favorite Real food sugar substitutes (along with a pure maple syrup!).

I buy dates that have already been pitted. We have a big family and we both work, so the last thing I want to be doing is pitting dates. It's okay to cheat sometimes :)

Arrow Root

Arrowroot is a thickener. Before we started eating like this I'd never used it, I don't think I even knew what it was. But it's great, you need very little and it thickens sauces beautifully. It's also derived from a plant, so that's all good with me!

When you use Arrowroot, mix it with cold water before you add it to your recipe. If you don't do this it can form lumps in your food and it's virtually impossible to get them out - mixing it with a touch of cold water creates a paste and then mixes easily into your recipe. Because no one likes lumps!!

Vanilla Bean Paste

I love this beautiful vanilla bean paste stuff! I started using the bean paste instead of extract as it's purer than extract and I use less of it in my baking. In an ideal world I'd be using the real deal all the time but it's really really expensive where I live and so...I only buy it when it's on offer. The vanilla paste is an excellent second best though :)

Storing

As I use use fresh cream in this recipe I keep this in the fridge for no more than a week, as long as the use by date on the cream carton allows for it. If the use by date is less than a week, either grab another one so you can keep this a bit longer or go with the creams use by date.

While the base date paste can be kept for much longer, it's the cream that needs watching!

More Clean Eating Sweet Treats

• Coconut milk caramel
• Salted caramel pudding
• Dairy free chocolate custard
• Strawberry fool
• Healthy pumpkin brownies

How To Make Sticky Date Sauce

Ingredients

• 1 Cup Dates Pitted
• ½ Cup Butter
• 4 tbsp Heavy cream
• 1½ Cup Boiling water
• 1 tsp Vanilla bean paste
• 1 tsp Arrow root Mixed with 4 tablespoon of cold water

Instructions

• Soak the dates in the boiling water for at least 10 minutes. Transfer the dates and the water to a blender and process for several minutes until the dates are completely smooth. Then pour into a small saucepan
• Over a medium heat add the other ingredients and use a whisk to combine
• Keep heating, stirring regularly until the sauce is thick and shiny
• Take off the heat and transfer to a glass jar for storing

Sticky Date Sauce Recipe