Drunken Sherry and Date Pudding

Nice if you have a sweet tooth, personally the caramel sauce was a bit much for me even with a little extra salt added. The sweetness of the pudding was just enough so I will just have mine with ice cream or custard,I would say this is more like a cake though than a pudding, this turned out like a sort of fruit cake 

185 gm  butter or margarine
3/4 cup  caster sugar
2 eggs
1 cup self raising flour
1/2 cup plain flour
1cup of dates,chopped
1/2 cup of raisins
sweet sherry
Caramel Sauce:
brown sugar pinch of salt
sweetened condensed milk
butter

What to do: 

1.Soak the dates and raisins in a container with the sherry,maybe 1/4 cup ,place in fridge for at least 24 hours, (I left mine in the fridge for 2 days, adding a little more sherry when  it was soaked up 
2.Heat oven to 185 fan forced, 
3.Beat butter and caster sugar until light. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Fold in the flours. Drain excess liquid from date mixture into cake batter, should be about a teaspoon full. If the cake mixture is still a tad to thick to spread and a splash of sherry to it.
4.Place about 2/3 the cake  mixture in a greased and lined tin, ( I just used a Pyrex meatloaf tin). Arrange the date mixture over the top. Carefully spread remaining mixture over the top of the dates. The mixture will not coat all the dates. The idea is to have some of the fruit still showing, most of it will sink to the bottom
Bake for about 45 to an hour at 185 degrees fan forced. if it starts to get to brown cover with foil.  Stand for 10 minutes before serving.

Caramal Sauce: 

 1.put equal parts of condensed milk, brown sugar, and butter and salt into a saucepan, whisk on a low heat until thick
Serve with a nice dollop of double cream, ice cream.

Notes:

I only had half a big tin of apricots that seemed to do, just enough for one layer. it would of been better with the 2 layers of fruit

I also found the batter a little to thick to spread so I  poured a little of the tin syrup into the batter and  mixed it through and that is Greek yoghurt on the plate, not cream or ice cream.
 NOTES: this will freeze, but you could also use the leftovers to make little trifle's

Drunken Sherry and Date Pudding with caramel sauce and ice cream