Sticky Toffee Pudding
The great British comfort dessert: a date sponge soaked in dark muscovado toffee sauce, served warm with more sauce than seems reasonable.
- prep
- 25 min
- cook
- 35 min
- total
- 1 h
- serves
- 8
- level
- medium
Sticky toffee pudding is dates doing an impression of toffee, and the impression is flawless. Soaked in boiling water with bicarbonate of soda, they melt into the sponge and leave only dark caramel depth behind.
A staple of every British gastropub and of Nigella Lawson’s comfort-food canon, it is far easier than its reputation: one bowl, one sauce, one warm dish of it disappearing.
This dish is one of our top 10 recipes that made Nigella Lawson famous.
method
Heat the oven to 180°C (350°F) and butter a roughly 20 cm square baking dish.
Pour the boiling water over the dates and bicarbonate of soda and leave for 10 minutes to soften.
Beat the butter and sugar together, then beat in the eggs and vanilla. Fold in the flour, then stir in the dates with all their liquid. The batter is loose; that is right.
Pour into the dish and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until just firm in the center.
For the sauce, melt the butter, sugar and cream together and simmer for 3 minutes until glossy. Add the salt.
Prick the warm pudding, pour over half the sauce and let it soak in. Serve warm with the rest of the sauce and cold cream or ice cream.
chef's tips
- Dark muscovado is the flavor of the dish. White sugar makes a different, lesser pudding.
- The bicarbonate of soda is what breaks the dates down; do not skip it.
- It freezes beautifully, sauce and all. Reheat covered and nobody will know.