Stolen Recipe: Mini Sticky Toffee Puddings

I have a thing for gooeyness. It negates my neutral feelings for desserts (meaning that I can usually take or leave them). Add alcohol to the gooeyness and I'm in heaven. If magazines wanted to cater just to me, they'd include a lot of breakfast dishes, tons of grilling ideas and a host of trifles, bread puddings, things with caramel and the like.

But, they don't do this. In fact, they never call, write or knock on my door to check on my ideas before printing their issues. So, I wander around the blogosphere looking at other blogs, bookmarking things I like and plan to make sometime in the future. Every once in a while I come across something that doesn't get made so much in the future as NOW. The Mini Sticky Toffee Puddings from Gingerbread Bagels is one of those things. Lindsey, who makes the delicious desserts on this blog posted the little muffins on December 1. I was able to wait all of two days (I made them yesterday) before I had to give them a go. I had to.

Lindsey originally saw the recipe on Martha Stewart and adapted it to her liking, which suits me fine. I did a few things differently, not because I thought I had a better way, but because necessity demanded it. For instance, I didn't have any dates so I used raisins. I don't know how the cupcakes taste with dates, but they're awesome with raisins.

I only had one mini-muffin tin (which I stole from Dudette's little baking set), so I couldn't pour the sauce in the bottom of the tins and let the muffins sit in them for 10 minutes. Since I had to keep using the pan for another round of muffins, I would put the ones that were done in a square pan and just pour the sauce all over them. They sat in it for 10 minutes and then got put on a rack set on parchment. There wasn't much drippage though; those little guys soaked up a lot of the toffee goodness. Did I mention that they have brandy in them?

I ate three before they had a chance to hit the rack (that's the danger of making mini-things). This morning I found out that they're also really good with coffee and make an awesome breakfast. Dudette didn't care for them (which is a good things since they have brandy in them) but Hubby said he could eat ten or so and enjoy getting sloshed (which wouldn't happen since the alcohol is cooked out, but I'll let him have his fantasy).

Head on over to Gingerbread Bagels and check out these Mini Sticky Toffee Puddings. Unlike me, Lindsey includes step-by-step pictures of the process and is a much better photographer. Tell her I said hi.