Boil a kettle. Snip open the sachet of dates. Empty them out into a small bowl and pour in 100ml boiling water and leave to soak.

Grease the foil pudding mould with a little butter or oil. Turn on the oven to 180°C.

Empty the sachet of cake mix into a bowl reserving 2 teaspoons. Use this to dust the greased dariole moulds with, to ensure a quick release.

For vegan puddings pour in 100ml of full fat oat or soya milk and whisk until the batter has no lumps and is smooth. stir in the soaked dates.

For non vegan puddings whisk one large egg (you should have 60ml of liquid egg). Pour 50ml of full fat dairy milk into the sponge mix and whisk, now pour in the egg until the batter has no lumps and is smooth. Stir in the soaked dates.

Pour and divide the batter equally between the moulds. Each mould should be filled ¾ of the way up. Bake in the oven for 12 minutes.

The Sauce

Whilst the puddings are in the oven, you can get on with the sauce. Take a small saucepan and empty out the sachet of muscovado sugar, add 50g butter, and heat gently until the sugar has dissolved. Now pour in 60ml of milk slowly stirring all the time.

Turn up the heat to boil for 1 minute. This will reduce and thicken the sauce a little. It should be syrupy enough to coat the back of a spoon.

Take the puddings out of the oven. Insert a fork to check they are cooked through, they should be springy to the touch. Cut off any excess sponge so when puddings are turned out they sit flat.

Create more holes with the fork in all of the puddings to the bottom. Then spoon 2 tbsps of sauce on each of the puddings and let this seep through and absorb.

Once the sauce has been absorbed, insert a knife around the edges of each pudding and turn them out onto a shallow bowl or saucer with a rim.

Pure the remainder of the sauce equally onto each pudding.

The sticky toffee puddings are best served warm with single cream or ice cream.