Start by pre-heating your oven to 180c/350f. Also grease an 8 inch square cake tin.

In a pot, add the milk and let this come to a boil. Once it comes to a boil, take it off the heat, and mix in the chopped dates and baking soda. Leave this aside for 10 minutes so that the dates can soften.

After 10 minutes, pour this into a food processor or blender, and process until smooth. Or alternatively you can just mash it with a fork, but I prefer when it's fully smooth.

In a large bowl, add the softened butter, brown sugar and vanilla. Beat these together for 5 minutes.

Add the date/milk mixture and eggs into this, whisk these in.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger and cardamom powder.

Add this into the other bowl and whisk everything together, until you can no longer see any flour.

Pour this into you prepared cake tin, then bake at 180c/350f for around 50-55 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. If at any point you notice that the cake is browning too much on top, add some tin foil over your tin to stop the browning.

Whiles the cake is baking, make the sauce.

Add all the ingredients for the sauce into a pot and place this onto medium heat. Let this come to a boil, then let it simmer for 1-2 minutes, you just want it to thicken slightly.

Leave this aside.

Once your cake has baked and it is still hot, poke some hole into it using a knife or skewer.

Pour half of the sauce over this, then leave this aside for 30 minutes so that the sauce can soak into the cake.

After 30 minutes, cut it into slices and serve with the leftover sauce and some ice cream. Enjoy!