Recipe
🍰 DESSERT
Sticky Toffee Pudding
A moist date sponge drowned in warm toffee sauce, the most comforting of British puddings, best with cream.
British · medium · serves 8
prep 20 min · cook 40 min
~559 cal · 5g protein · 84g carbs · 24g fat · 4g fiber · 62g sugars · 15g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Sticky toffee pudding is a modern British classic, popularised in the Lake District in the 1970s, at the Sharrow Bay Hotel on Ullswater and then in the village of Cartmel, though earlier claims reach back to a Yorkshire inn in the early 1900s. It has since become the pudding the whole country reaches for, the definition of comfort at the end of a meal.
Its magic is the , blitzed into the batter, which melt away to leave an intensely moist, dark sponge. Smothered in a warm toffee sauce of butter, cream, and brown sugar and served with more cream or custard, it is unapologetically rich.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian and nut- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 8
1 1/2 cups pitted , chopped
1 1/2 cups flour
2 eggs
1/2 cup butter
1 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 cups dark brown sugar, muscovado for the deepest flavour
1 tbsp black treacle
Hard to find? dark molasses - very close; use a mild molasses rather than blackstrap, which is more bitter
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp fine salt
Instructions
1
Pour boiling water over the dates with the baking soda and let them soften, then mash.
✎ Chef’s note
Soaking the dates until they collapse is what gives the sponge its dark, wet, almost fudgy crumb. Do not rush it.
2
Cream the butter with half the sugar, beat in the eggs, the treacle, and the vanilla, then fold in the flour with the baking powder and salt, and last the date mixture.
3
Bake at 350F (180C) until risen and set, about 30 minutes.
4
Make the sauce: melt a knob of butter with the remaining sugar, pour in the cream and a pinch of salt, and simmer 3 to 4 minutes, stirring, until glossy.
5
Prick the hot sponge all over with a skewer and pour over about half the sauce, tilting the dish so it soaks in. Leave it a few minutes.
✎ Chef’s note
This is the step that makes it sticky rather than merely sauced. The sponge has to drink the toffee while it is still hot from the oven.
6
Serve warm with the rest of the sauce, and cream, custard, or vanilla ice cream.
British pudding tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Cumbria (Lake District). Cumbria is England's lake and fell country, a landscape of hill farms, Herdwick sheep, and damp winters that bred a kitchen of long-keeping sweetness: rum butter, Grasmere gingerbread, and Cumberland sausage. The Sharrow Bay hotel on Ullswater made the date sponge drowned in toffee famous in the 1970s, though inns in Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Aberdeenshire all claim earlier versions, and the recipe is often traced back to Canadian airmen billeted in wartime Britain.
🗺️
United Kingdom. British cooking has quietly reinvented itself, but its heart stays in the roast dinner, the pie, fish and chips, and a great baking tradition. Regional specialties and waves of South Asian influence (the beloved curry house) shape the modern table.
🌍
Europe. A surprising amount of European cooking is under five hundred years old. Tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, maize, beans and chocolate all crossed from the Americas after 1492, and none of them was trusted quickly: the potato took most of the eighteenth century to be accepted as food rather than animal fodder across much of the north.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from United Kingdom
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Beans on ToastSaucy baked beans piled onto hot buttered toast, the humble British comfort breakfast.
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Good to know
You’ll need: Oven.
Storing it: Keep chilled and covered, and enjoy within 2 to 3 days.
Make it a United Kingdom meal
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Cuisine
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Frequently asked questions
What is Sticky Toffee Pudding?
A moist date sponge drowned in warm toffee sauce, the most comforting of British puddings, best with cream.
Where does Sticky Toffee Pudding come from?
Sticky Toffee Pudding is a British dish from Cumbria (Lake District), United Kingdom.
Can Sticky Toffee Pudding be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Sticky Toffee Pudding recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions, including several at once such as gluten-free and dairy-free together. Treat them as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Sticky Toffee Pudding safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Sticky Toffee Pudding take to make?
About 60 minutes total (20 minutes prep, 40 minutes cooking), serving 8.
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