Sticky toffee pudding, known as sticky date pudding in Australia and New Zealand, is a British dessert consisting of a moist sponge cake covered in caramel sauce, often served with custard or vanilla ice cream.
It is widely served in the Lake District in northwest England, where it is a culinary symbol and one of the most typical desserts in English pubs.
The dessert has two essential components: a moist sponge that contains finely chopped dates (often lightly flavored with nuts or spices like cloves) and the caramel sauce made with double cream and various dark sugars (brown sugar, jaggery, molasses sugar, muscovado, panela, peen tong).
Served with a cup of Cornish tea, Sticky toffee pudding is dedicated to “Baby Reindeer“ a Netflix mini-series Golden Globe winner for best drama miniseries, for the Golden Globes Menu of the column “Building the menu”.
Plot: aspiring comedian Donny Dunn works as a bartender in a London pub.
One day he offers a customer, Martha, a tea to cheer her up, and from that moment the woman develops a strong attachment to him, visiting the pub daily and harassing him online.
- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Economical
- Rest time: 20 Minutes
- Preparation time: 10 Minutes
- Portions: 6 People
- Cooking methods: Boiling, Oven
- Cuisine: English
- Seasonality: All seasons
Ingredients
- 6.2 oz dates
- 5.3 tbsp butter
- 6.2 oz sugar
- 3 eggs
- 2 cups flour
- 1 tsp baking powder (or baking soda)
- 2.6 oz black treacle (molasses) (or golden syrup)
- 0.5 cup milk (or water)
- 5.3 tbsp butter
- 5.3 oz brown sugar (or jaggery, muscovado, panela, peen tong)
- 2 tbsp molasses sugar (or dark molasses)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 0.6 cup cream
Tools
- 1 Baking Pan 12×8
Steps
Chop the dates and soak them in 6 oz of boiling water for 20 minutes (you can blend them afterwards if you wish).
Mix the butter with the sugar, add the eggs, flour, baking powder, molasses, then the ground dates and milk (or water).
Pour the mixture into a 12×8 baking pan and bake in a static oven at 350°F for 35 minutes.
Bring the ingredients to a boil for 7 minutes.
Pour over the warm sponge cake.
Serve in squares with ice cream or cream on top if desired.
Storage and Tips:
Storage and Tips:
It is best served fresh, but can last more than 3 days in the refrigerator. The pudding can be made in advance and frozen.
The sauce can be prepared in advance and stored in the refrigerator for 3 days.
The sauce can be prepared in advance and stored in the refrigerator for 3 days.
You can also serve it with a cup of Cornish tea like the one I brought back from my trip to Cornwall.
FAQ (Questions and Answers)
What are the origins of Sticky toffee pudding?
The origins of sticky toffee pudding are disputed.
Pub owners including the Gait Inn in Millington, East Riding of Yorkshire (said to originate in 1907) and the Udny Arms Hotel in Newburgh, Aberdeenshire (1960s) claim to have invented it.
The pudding was popularized in the 1970s by Francis Coulson and Robert Lee, who served it at the Sharrow Bay Country House Hotel in Cumbria.
Food critic Simon Hopkinson wrote that Coulson told him he had received the recipe from a certain Patricia Martin of Claughton in Lancashire, who in turn had received it from Canadian Air Force officers who stayed at her hotel during World War II.
A takeaway version for reheating, both in the oven and microwave, was developed in 1989 by the owners of the Village Shop in Cartmel, Cumbria.
Their dish became popular and by the late 1990s it was sold in supermarkets across the UK.
