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Sticky toffee pudding
A moist date sponge baked in a dish, covered with toffee sauce and grilled until bubbling, served with more sauce and cream. Claimed by several hotels, most often Sharrow Bay on Ullswater in the Lake District. This is Simon Hopkinson's recipe for four.
- Servings
- 4
- Preparation
- 20 min
- Cooking
- 45 min
- Resting
- 20 min
- Total
- 1 h 25
- Difficulty
- Easy
Equipment
- Food processor
- Baking dish, well buttered
- Two small saucepans; whisk
Ingredients
Sponge
Topping
Extra sauce
Method
Heat the oven to 180 °C.
Pour the boiling water over the dates in a large bowl, stir and leave until lukewarm. Meanwhile weigh all the other sponge ingredients.
Timer · 15 min15:00Add them to the dates and mix well, then blend in a food processor until nearly smooth, with a few specks of date still visible.
Why Blending the soaked dates through the batter makes the sponge dark and moist.
Pour into the generously buttered dish and bake 40 minutes, until just firm to the touch.
Timer · 40 min40:00Heat the grill to medium. In separate pans, heat the topping ingredients and the sauce ingredients gently, whisking, until each briefly boils.
Timer · 5 min5:00Pour the topping over the hot pudding and put it under the grill until bubbling.
Timer · 3 min3:00Spoon into bowls, pour the extra sauce around and serve with double cream.
Substitutions
- Molasses sugar → Dark muscovado; the toffee will be slightly less dark and bitter.
Common mistakes
- Overbaking: the sponge dries; take it out when just firm.
- Boiling the sauces hard: the butter separates. Bring them only briefly to the boil.
Storage & reheating
Keeps 2 days covered in the fridge; reheat with some of the sauce. The sponge also freezes without the topping.
Allergens
Gluten · Milk · Egg
Check labels: stock, bacon and sauces can contain further allergens.
Dietary
vegetarian
Whose pudding?
Several places claim the first sticky toffee pudding. The Udny Arms at Newburgh-on-Ythan in Aberdeenshire says 1967. The Gait Inn at Millington in Yorkshire has been credited with 1907, though its landlord says it does not know the origins. The best-known claim is the Sharrow Bay hotel on Ullswater, opened by Francis Coulson in 1948, where an 'icky sticky toffee sponge' appeared on the menu in 1960. Coulson may have adapted a recipe from a Mrs Martin of The Old Rectory, Claughton, in Lancashire, who said she had it from a Canadian friend.
Dates, dark sugar, two sauces
Hopkinson soaks dates in boiling water with bicarbonate and blends them into the batter, with demerara and dark molasses sugar for depth. The baked sponge gets a topping of cream, butter and molasses sugar grilled until it bubbles into the surface, and a second, thinner sauce is poured round each portion.
How it connects
Place
- origin Lake District In preparation