Ingredients
250g mascarpone
280g Philadelphia full fat cream cheese
200ml double cream
1 tbsp vanilla
50g icing sugar, sieved
¼ tsp fine salt

Ingredients for the base
200g whole medjool dates
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
150ml water
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
100g butter
100g caster sugar
40g light muscovado sugar
2 eggs
175g self raising flour
100ml milk, room temperature
1 tbsp black treacle

Butterscotch Sauce
200g light muscovado sugar
75g butter
300ml double cream
1 tbsp black treacle
¼ tsp fine salt

Decoration
50g fudge, chopped
100g medjool dates
75g chocolate covered dates
75g pecans

Equipment needed
20cm springform tin

Method
Heat the oven to 180c and put a baking tray into the oven.

Stone and cut the dates small.  Put the dates in a bowl and add the bicarb then mix through the boiling water. Leave for 30 minutes to soften and then mix and mash with a fork. Stir through the vanilla extract.

In a stand mixer, beat the butter and sugars for a couple of minutes until soft and creamy.  Add the eggs one at a time, thoroughly mixing after each.  Add the treacle, date mix, flour and the milk and briefly mix through.

9 times out of 10 the mixture looks slightly curdled at some point during in this process, don’t fret though it comes back together and still turns out perfectly.

Grease and line a 20cm springform cake tin and tip in the batter.  Put the cake tin into the oven on to the baking tray and cook for roughly 30-45 minutes until golden, depending on your oven.  It should be risen and a cocktail stick or skewer should come out clean.

Meanwhile make your toffee sauce.  Put the sugar, butter, half of the cream and the black treacle into a small saucepan and gently cook until the sugar dissolves.  Once the sugar has dissolved you want to bubble the sauce for 2 minutes.  Remove from the heat and stir in the rest of the cream.

When the cake is cooked, cover with half of the sauce and put to one side to cool completely.

Meanwhile, If you have a second tin, grease with a touch of oil and line it with clingfilm, otherwise, carefully remove the cake from the tin, wash, dry, grease and line the original tin.

Put all of the cheesecake components into a stand mixture and set going on low until just combined.  Try not to over-mix as mascarpone has a habit of liquifying the longer you mix so stop as soon as everything has amalgamated.

Put the mascarpone into the clingfilm lined tin and, using a palette knife, smooth out the top.  Put into the fridge for at least 3 hours.

Once the cake is cool, carefully unclip the cake tin and remove all of the baking paper.  Put the cake back onto a serving dish and poke holes in it, making sure not to go all the way down to the bottom.  Put 5 tbsps of the sauce over the top gradually.

Once your cheesecake layer has set, carefully put the mascarpone on the top of your sticky toffee cake and line up.  In the middle of the cake, dig out enough of the mascarpone to hold roughly 8 tbsps of toffee sauce.  Take the mascarpone you have just cut out and carefully put on the top of the cheesecake layer so you waste nothing. 

Top the cake with the decorations and enjoy.

- Sticky Toffee Pud Recipe originated here.