Sticky Toffee Pudding

Dessert | British

Prep time: 20 minutes Cook time: 25 minutes Servings: 6

Sticky toffee pudding is top three desserts for me, and I’ve been making this one for years. I picked up this recipe at some point during my chef career and have made it many, many times in restaurants and at home. For this recipe you want good dates. The better the dates, the better the pudding. The other thing I’d point at is the treacle. You don’t see it used much in these anymore (most people use brown sugar) and I think that’s a shame, because it’s what makes the cake rich and moreish rather than just sweet.

Serve them warm, glaze the top with a little sauce while they’re still hot, then vanilla ice cream on top and a jug of sauce on the table (the more sauce the better). You can swap the ice cream for custard but i think vanilla ice cream works best for this dessert.

Ingredient Notes

Medjool dates: The better the dates, the better the pudding. I use Medjool dates but I know they can be expensive. If you want a more budget-friendly option, you can use the standard pitted baking dates. Either way, pour just-boiled water over them and leave them 10 to 15 minutes to soften.

Black treacle: A thick, sticky syrup that comes off the sugar refining process, dark and bittersweet, somewhere near molasses. It’s the backbone of British baking, treacle tart and treacle sponge included. We're adding two tablespoons in the cake, two more in the sauce.

Demerara and muscovado sugar: Demerara in the cake, muscovado in the sauce. Demerara is barely refined cane sugar, light amber, caramel flavoured, in big crystals, and those crystals are why the creamed butter and sugar never goes smooth. Muscovado is unrefined cane juice boiled down and crystallised with the molasses left in, so it’s soft and bittersweet and already tastes of toffee. Demerara works in the sauce too if that is all you have.

Equipment

Electric hand beater
Large mixing bowl
Rubber spatula
Small saucepan
Medium saucepan or saucier
Whisk
Pastry brush
6 ramekins, about 225ml each
Oven tray
Skewer
Kitchen scales and measuring jug

Ingredients

225g (1 ½ cups) whole Medjool dates, pitted
175ml (¾ cup) water
140g (⅔ cup) demerara sugar
85g (¾ stick) softened butter + extra for greasing ramekins
2 eggs
2 tbsp black treacle
1 tsp vanilla paste or extract
175g (1 ⅓ cups) plain flour + extra for dusting
1 tsp bicarb soda
1 tsp baking powder
100ml (scant ½ cup) milk
pinch of salt
Sauce
175g (1 cup) muscovado sugar
50g butter
225ml (1 cup) cream
2 tbsp black treacle
pinch of salt
ice cream or custard to serve

Directions

Make the cake
Preheat your oven to 160°C (320°F) fan force.
Start by boiling the water over high heat in a small saucepan. Add the dates to the water, turn the element off and set aside for 10-15 minutes while they soften.
Using an electric handmixer, cream together the softened butter and sugar (note this should almost double in size but probably won't be smooth because of the coarse sugar).
Now, beat in the two eggs, treacle, and vanilla extract until combined.
Turn the mixer off and add the bicarb soda, baking powder and milk, mix until well combined. Don’t worry if the mixture has split at this stage. Add half of the flour and fold through the batter. Next add the remaining flour and fold through until smooth, be careful not to overmix the flour.
Mash your softened dates in the water and fold through the batter, don’t worry if the dates are still chunky.
Grease 6 ramekins with softened butter, lightly dust with flour (tap put the remaining flour), and divide the batter between the ramekins, filling them ⅔ full.
Transfer them to an oven tray and bake at 160°C (320°F) for 20-25 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
Make the sauce
To a medium saucepan, add the sugar, treacle, butter and half the cream over medium heat, whisking until you have a smooth consistency - cook this for 4-5 minutes.
Remove from the heat and whisk in the remaining cream.
Serve over the hot sticky toffee pudding with your choice of ice cream or custard.

Recipe notes

Chef Tips

Butter the ramekins right into the corners

Why? Firstly, you want the pudding to come out. Secondly, a greased wall gives the batter nothing to grip, so the cake climbs evenly. If you miss a patch and the batter sticks there, the rest keeps going, and it domes up in the middle and cracks. Then dust with flour, tap it around and turn out what doesn’t stick.

Don’t panic when the batter splits

It will look curdled once the milk and the raising agents go in. That is meant to happen. It comes back together as soon as you fold the flour through, so leave it alone and keep going.

Fold the flour, don’t beat it

Add it in two halves and fold until the floury streaks have gone, then stop. Beating flour into a cake batter develops the gluten, and you end up with something rubbery and firm instead of light and spongy. This is the one step in the recipe where working harder makes it worse.

Leave the dates chunky

Some recipes puree them. I don’t. Break them up on low speed, or mash them in the soaking water, until they’re jammy but you can still see pieces. Those bits of date through the finished cake are half the point of it.

Storage

These keep better than most desserts. Cool them to room temperature, wrap in cling film, and they’ll hold in the fridge for five days or the freezer for two months. Keep the sauce in its own container. To reheat, unwrap and microwave for 30 seconds or put them back in a 160°C (320°F) oven, and warm the sauce in a small saucepan over low heat. Always serve them warm.

FAQs

Can I put whiskey in the sauce? A lot of people do, and a shot of whiskey or rum at the end of the sauce doesn’t hurt it. I don’t drink so I leave it out. One thing to know if you do add it: the sauce never gets hot enough to cook the alcohol off, so there will be traces left in it. Leave it out if you’re serving kids or anyone who doesn’t drink.

Do I have to use ramekins? No. I use 225ml ramekins, but any size works as long as you only fill them two thirds and use the skewer to tell you when they’re done. You can also bake it as one cake. A small square tin is the one I’d reach for, because squares portion better than slices with this.

Can I make them ahead? You can bake them in the afternoon, let them come to room temperature, then flash them through the oven or microwave to get them hot again. Or get the batter into the ramekins, keep them in the fridge, and put them in the oven as you serve your main course.