For the Coziest Winter Dessert, Make It the British Way

My first encounter with sticky toffee pudding was a series of midnight baking sessions together with the owner of Two Fat Cats Bakery, preparing holiday orders in the week leading up to Christmas. I can still remember the butterscotch smell in the bakery as we poured the toffee sauce from large pitchers over dozens of cakes. I took one home after we were done, and fell in love with the deep caramel flavor of the gooey, fluffy cake. 

Since it was only available on the bakery’s holiday menu, I strongly associate it with the Christmas season. Imagine my delight, nearly a decade later, when I moved to London and found sticky toffee pudding on dessert menus year-round. While it's the dessert of choice after a traditional Sunday roast, that didn't stop me from ordering it on any other day of the week.

What Is Sticky Toffee Pudding?

With a name like sticky toffee pudding, one imagines a syrupy, saccharine goo, but “pudding” just means dessert in England. Rather than an American-style pudding, sticky toffee pudding is a decadent date cake smothered in a glossy toffee sauce.

Softened, puréed dates are mixed into the batter to give the cake a deep, molasses-like flavor. While the cake is baking, butter, brown sugar, heavy cream, and a splash of (optional) brandy bubble together to make the toffee sauce. When the cake is almost done baking, it's blanketed in a layer of the sauce and returned to the oven until bubbling and partially absorbed into the cake.

Warm slices are served with extra toffee sauce and a side of custard, whipped cream, or my favorite, vanilla ice cream, which melts into the gooey sauce and cake.

The History of Sticky Toffee Pudding

I was surprised to learn that sticky toffee pudding isn’t quite the old-time dessert I thought it was. The exact origin is disputed among several hotels and restaurants, but it is deeply tied to the bucolic region of Cumbria in northern England.

The now-shuttered Sharrow Bay Hotel in the Lake District added the cake to its menu in the 1970s, and it quickly spread from there. But others trace it back to the turn of the twentieth century at another inn in Yorkshire. Whoever dreamed it up, I thank them.

Tips and Upgrades

Sticky toffee pudding reaches the peak position of my dessert hierarchy, possibly only outranked by some chocolate desserts. It's hard to imagine improving on it, but one easy tip and two optional upgrades turn this pudding into a gourmet experience without tarnishing its laid-back, comfort-food feel.

• Use room temperature butter and eggs. Softened butter and room-temperature eggs will mix and emulsify better into the batter, ensuring a fluffy cake with plenty of rise.
• I sometimes soften the dates in hot coffee rather than boiling water for a deeper, more complex flavor.
• Upgrading to Medjool dates makes this cake extra special. Because of the convenience, I typically use Deglet Noor pitted dates in this recipe, which are readily available at my grocery store. While they're more expensive and you'll have to pit them yourself, Medjool dates melt into the batter, infusing the cake with their hypnotic caramel-brown-sugar flavor.