🇬🇧 How to Make Sticky Toffee Pudding

Craving Sticky Toffee Pudding? On FoodNeverComes the food never actually comes — so here's how to make real Sticky Toffee Pudding at home, in about 1 hr, with stuff you probably already have.

🛒 Ingredients

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• 200g medjool dates, pitted and chopped
• 250ml boiling water
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 85g butter, softened
• 150g dark brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 175g self-raising flour
• 1 tsp vanilla
• Sauce: 300ml double cream
• 150g dark brown sugar
• 75g butter
• 1 tbsp black treacle
• a pinch of salt

👩‍🍳 Method

1. Pour the boiling water over the dates with the bicarbonate of soda and leave 20 minutes. The alkali breaks the dates down to a purée and darkens the sponge — this is why the cake is the colour it is, and skipping it gives you a pale, ordinary date cake.
2. Cream the butter and sugar, beat in the eggs one at a time, then fold in the flour and the date mixture with its liquid. The batter will look alarmingly wet. It is meant to.
3. Bake at 180°C for 30–35 minutes in a lined tin until a skewer comes out clean.
4. For the sauce, melt everything together and simmer 5 minutes until it thickens and turns glossy. The treacle and the salt are what stop it being merely sweet.
5. Prick the warm sponge all over and pour a third of the sauce over it. Let it soak in for 10 minutes — this is the step that makes it sticky rather than just a sponge with sauce on.
6. Serve warm with the rest of the sauce and cold vanilla ice cream or thick cream.