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Sticky Toffee Pudding Cake is a deliciously moist, date cake drenched in a warm butterscotch-toffee sauce. It's a classic and iconic British dessert popular in all of England, Scotland and Ireland, and it's easy to see why!
If you're looking for some other amazing Irish cuisine, be sure to try our Bangers and Mash, Irish Apple Cake, Corned Beef and Cabbage, Dublin Coddle, or Shepherd's Pie!
When it comes to Harry Potter desserts, or authentic Irish dessert ideas for St. Patrick's Day, this Sticky Toffee Pudding Cake is my favorite! It's also perfect as an easy Christmas pudding if you want to celebrate Christmas in Victorian fashion!
A little quick terminology: the word "pudding" is misleading for those of us not from the United Kingdom where it is more of a generic term meaning "dessert".
Our idea of pudding in America is more equivalent to what the British or Irish might refer to as a custard. So you could think of this more as "sticky toffee dessert" or to be more specific, "sticky toffee pudding cake", if that helps.
Now, I'm making no claims to this being an authentic Sticky Toffee Pudding Cake recipe.
Like I mentioned in my post about Dublin Coddle (which, by the way, is the perfect thing to eat before having this for dessert!), while my heritage is predominantly Irish, I've never been to Ireland myself and didn't grow up eating Irish food in my home.
But if you are looking for the perfect dessert to serve on St. Patrick's Day, one that you might find in Ireland and not just something dyed green with food coloring (affiliate link), Sticky Toffee Pudding is delicious and the way to go!
While researching this recipe, I learned that there are a lot of different approaches to making this moist, rich, sticky dessert.
I couldn't for the life of me find anything that explained with authority what a truly authentic sticky toffee pudding would be like other than it most definitely needs to be made with dates soaked in hot water and baking soda.
Other than that, some versions are steamed, some contain treacle or golden syrup (a sweetener that is difficult to come by in the U.S.) in the sauce, others have it in the cake itself, other versions include molasses, some call for white sugar, some for brown, nuts or no nuts, etc. and so forth!
Not to be deterred, I went ahead and made a version using only ingredients that are readily available in the U.S., all of which I already had on hand in my pantry, thanks to an impulse purchase of Medjool dates at Costco a while back.
You can bake the date cakes in individual ramekins, muffin tins, or even mugs, if you like. I have a couple of mugs that have dome-shaped bases that I thought would create a fun look for these cakes and they worked perfectly as ramekin stand-ins since they are essentially the same thing.
In fact, I ended up choosing the cakes made in the mugs for these photos because I liked how they were not as squat as the cakes made in the ramekins and had a fun, unique shape to them. I haven't tried using mugs as ramekin substitutes for Chocolate Molten Lava Cakes yet but I'm guessing they would work just as well there too!
Just make sure to divide your batter evenly between 6 similarly sized oven safe containers and pop them in the oven on a baking sheet.
Make sure not to overbake these as part of the magic of a Sticky Toffee Pudding Cake is its, well, stickiness, not just from the sauce but the cake itself, and if you overbake it you will end up with dry, not-so-sticky cake, which will spoil the effect.
Definitely err on the side of underbaking, rather than overbaking.
You must, must, must serve your sticky toffee pudding cake warm. The butterscotch-toffee sauce soaks into the rich warm cake and creates a totally unique dessert experience.
Because I don't plan ahead and don't like to wait, we ate these the night I made them, while still warm from the oven.
But I read somewhere along the way that apparently, you really are SUPPOSED to make the cakes and the sauce in advance, let them cool completely, then reheat both to serve. Like, the next day.
Um, what...? That's not how dessert works in this household. Blarney, I say. I'm eating it day of when it's still warm out of the oven.
Maybe next time I'll save enough to try it again the next day and see if the reheating method changes the flavors at all.
Oh, and one final note is that you can serve these just as they are, or with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, or drizzled with a little bit of cream, which was utterly delicious. I definitely recommend trying that last approach.
More Irish Recipes You'll Enjoy
- Irish Apple Cake with Warm Custard Sauce
- Irish Soda Bread
- Bangers and Mash with Onion Gravy
- Creamy Irish Leek and Potato Soup
- Dublin Coddle (One Pot Irish Potato, Sausage & Onion Stew)
- Irish Colcannon (Mashed Potatoes & Cabbage)
Did you make this recipe? Let me know what you thought with a comment and star rating below. You can also take a picture and tag me on Instagram @houseofnasheats or share it on the Pinterest pin so I can see.
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Sticky Toffee Pudding Cake with Toffee Sauce
Ingredients
Date Cakes
- 6 ounces pitted Medjool dates about 1 cup or 8-10 dates, chopped
- ¾ cup boiling water
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon vanilla
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- 6 Tablespoons butter softened
- 2 large eggs
- 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
Toffee Sauce
- ¾ cup packed dark brown sugar
- ½ cup butter
- ½ cup heavy whipping cream
- Pinch of coarse kosher salt
Instructions
Date Cakes
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray 6 individual ramekins or mugs or 9 cups of a muffin tin with cooking spray.
- Combine the chopped dates, boiling water, baking soda and vanilla in a bowl (or just put them together in a food processor to chop the dates) and let the dates soak for 15 minutes.
- In a separate bowl, combine the butter and sugar and cream together using a mixer until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes. Add the eggs and mix well to combine.
- Add the flour, baking powder and salt and stir just until combined. Do not overmix.
- Fold in the dates and water just until combined, but do not overmix.
- Divide the batter evenly between the ramekins, mugs, or muffin cups, then bake for 18-22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cake comes out clean and the top springs back at your touch. Don't overbake.
Toffee Sauce
- In a medium saucepan, combine the brown sugar and butter over medium heat. Cook and stir until the butter and sugar melt together, then lower heat to a simmer add the cream and salt, stirring and cooking for 5 minutes until the sauce thickens slightly.
- To serve, place one cake on each serving plate and top with toffee sauce and a little cream or vanilla ice cream.
Kylee says
Looks amazing, Amy! I'd love this right now. That sauce!!!
Jessica Robinson says
OMG!! You had me at "warm Butterscotch Toffee" oh yum!
Monica Le says
oh this Toffee Pudding Cake looks so delicious....wish I had some right now!
Paige says
Yum yum yum, these look awesome. I love how you can have the toffee sauce on the side with these!
Jenni LeBaron says
Yum! We visited the UK last year for a couple of weeks and this was on almost every menu. What a great way to relive some good memories with something tasty!
Patti says
My mother went through a phase when I was a child where she was experimenting with all types of puddings. I remember being disappointed that it wasn't custard until I tasted the moist little cakes with it's unique sauce. I hadn't thought of that in a long time. I will have to try this recipe and fail to inform my kids that it's an Irish pudding until serving time. Then I can tell them more stories about their grandmother. I don't suppose you have a recipe for Treacle Tarts...
Amy says
This is such a funny story! I love it! I don't have a treacle tart recipe posted yet but it's on my list of things I would like to make this year!
Renee Gardner says
Sticky toffee pudding is my FAVORITE dessert. It beats chocolate cake any day!
Helene says
Oh that reminds me of a dish I had in Prague last year!! Yes I need your sticky toffee pudding in my life, I should make this regularly. I would be sunshine after a long day. =D
prasanna hede says
After looking at these gorgeous clicks I am totally craving for the sticky pudding!
Karyl | Karyl's Kulinary Krusade says
Oh man, this looks delicious! I only like dates wrapped in bacon...but I think this beautiful butterscotch-toffee sauce is enough for me to try this dessert. It looks so wonderfully divine.
lauren says
Warm cake with gooey toffee on top?! Sign me up. I can almost taste this sweet treat just looking at those photos. What a great dessert to make for family!
Claire | The Simple, Sweet Life says
This looks divine! And your explanation of how folks in the UK use the word "pudding" was super helpful. I've always wondered what made these dishes "pudding" when they didn't outwardly look like such. Now I know! 🙂
Emily says
Omg I can just imagine how good this tastes, it looks amazing!
Krystal says
Do you think I would be able to turn this into an 8-inch cake?
Amy says
Yes, you could definitely do that! I'm not sure on an exact cook time, but I would start checking around 20 minutes and I would think it would be done by 30 minutes for sure.
Sandy says
I made this for corned beef and cabbage dinner dessert, it was a huge hit!! Definitely will be making it again - thank you for sharing.
Margaret says
This may be blasphemy, but I didn’t have dates and substituted prunes. Amazing result. Moist and sticky with a hint of rich prune flavour. Won’t go back to dates.
Amy says
That's great to know!