Put the dates in a bowl, add the baking soda, and pour on 250 ml (9 fl oz) of hot or boiling water. Leave to stand while you prepare the rest of the batter.

Cream together the butter and sugar. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Sieve in the flour and fold it into the mixture.

Add in the dates with their liquid, together with the vanilla essence. Mix well and pour into a well-greased 8″ (20 cm) cake tin. (Use a smaller tin for a thicker cake)
Bake at 180°C for 35 minutes. Check with a skewer to ensure it is cooked. Leave to cool while you make the sauce…
Melt the butter in a pan, add the sugar and the cream and bring to the boil gently with stirring.

Simmer the sauce gently for 5 minutes with stirring.
Turn the cake out onto a plate and bodge lots of holes in it with a chopstick. Pour on about half of the sauce, ensuring that the holes fill up with sauce. Leave for 30 minutes.
To serve, pour some warmed sauce onto a slice of the cake. Drool!

#Tips:

If you don’t like dates you can add other dried fruits like apricots or prunes or raisins, but dates are definitely best!

Crème fraiche can be substituted for whipping cream if you need to.

Serve with cream, custard or ice-cream but make sure you serve smallish portions.