The best way to Make Sticky Toffee Pudding, the Traditional British Dessert

I met my husband, Lewis, once I was in college in Scotland, and after we first began relationship, an evening out often meant a pint or two at a pub adopted by some sticky toffee pudding. One night, he casually revealed that his mom, Sheena, as soon as labored on the Udny Arms Lodge in Newburgh, Scotland. The lodge is the place sticky toffee pudding—a moist British cake made with chopped dates that’s generously drenched in toffee sauce—reportedly originated within the Nineteen Sixties. It seems he grew up consuming loads of “STP,” the moniker my in-laws have lovingly given the dessert. 

Sheena introduced the recipe along with her when she relocated from her house in Scotland to St. Louis, Missouri, and although she seldom made it at house, she shared the recipe along with her husband, Dan, and the pudding turned a signature dessert on the menu at Schlafly, a brewery he opened in 1991. Give “Schlafly sticky toffee pudding” a fast search in Google, and you can be greeted with quite a few outcomes of individuals making an attempt to recreate the dish at house. A TripAdvisor person calls it the perfect dessert they’ve ever eaten, saying they’d return to the brewery for the dessert alone. Although my in-laws are not concerned with the brewery, Sheena’s tackle the Udny Arms Lodge’s sticky toffee pudding remains to be on the menu. And as somebody who has eaten and made STP utilizing Sheena’s recipe loads of instances, I agree wholeheartedly: It is without doubt one of the finest desserts on the earth.

The place Did Sticky Toffee Pudding Actually Come From?

The origins of sticky toffee pudding have been hotly debated. Many publications, together with The Telegraph, Taste, and the BBC, credit score Sharrow Bay Nation Home Lodge in Cumbria, England, with having popularized the dessert within the Seventies. But, the Udny Arms Lodge claims it first served the dessert in 1967, whereas the Gait Inn in Millington, a village in Yorkshire, says sticky toffee pudding has been on its menu since 1907. To make issues much more sophisticated, Sharrow Bay Nation Home Lodge’s late chef Francis Coulson as soon as informed a journalist on the Telegraph that the recipe got here to him from a neighborhood girl, who obtained the recipe from a pal in Canada. Who’s to say that sticky toffee pudding isn’t Canadian? And what if a Brit gave the recipe to a Canadian, who then shared it with a British pal?

In an try to get a solution, I appeared via many, many aged cookbooks, newspapers, and magazines to try to discover the primary printed recipe for sticky toffee pudding. The earliest point out of “sticky toffee pudding” I may discover was in an April 1976 version of The Observer, however what it referred to was milk-soaked bread fried in butter and drizzled with golden syrup, which is nothing just like the STP we all know right this moment.

The subsequent point out of sticky toffee pudding occurred a number of months later in November of 1976, this time in The Guardian, the place Coulson, the chef from the Sharrow Bay Nation Home Lodge, is quoted in a dialogue about British desserts. Britain has “an ideal deal to supply with sweets if we get again our confidence,” Coulson tells the author Dennis Barker. “Issues like sticky toffee pudding and Bakewell tarts.” It’s cheap to imagine that the STP Coulson is referring to is, certainly, the dessert we all know right this moment, since he’s typically credited with having popularized it. 

Though I couldn’t discover references to sticky toffee pudding in print earlier than 1976, there are many outdated recipes in archives for date puddings. A few of these classic puddings, just like the one in Ella Ervilla Kellogg’s 1892 Science within the Kitchen, name for soaking breadcrumbs with milk, cream, and dates, whereas others instruct cooks to pound pitted dates, then fold the fruit into a combination of lemon juice, butter, overwhelmed yolks, brandy, sugar, and rancid breadcrumbs. Most of those conventional puddings had been steamed, although some had been baked. Nowadays, baking is the norm for many house cooks, together with myself.  My hunch is that someplace alongside the best way, a curious prepare dinner riffed on these puddings and got here up with what we all know as sticky toffee pudding right this moment. Whereas there are not any breadcrumbs, lemon juice, or brandy in right this moment’s sticky toffee pudding, there are nonetheless loads of dates, butter, and sugar.

Wait, It is Not Really a Pudding?

For these of you who’re anticipating American-style pudding, you’ve come to the improper place. That is pudding within the British sense, which refers to something that may be eaten for dessert, together with different classics like Victoria sponge and Eton mess. (The exception is savory pudding, equivalent to like black, white, and Yorkshire pudding, amongst many others.) Sticky toffee pudding is a cake, and although many British institutions will steam it for a barely softer and moister model, this iteration of STP is baked.

The Greatest Dates to Use for Sticky Toffee Pudding

I want dried Medjool dates to different varieties when making sticky toffee pudding, as they’ve wealthy caramel notes that add depth of taste to the cake and complement the buttery toffee sauce. Barhi dates, that are notoriously candy with hints of butterscotch, would even be a scrumptious choice. Deglet Noor dates aren’t fairly as flavorful as Medjool or Barhi dates, but when they’re the one dried dates you will get your fingers on, they’ll work simply high-quality. Whichever selection you select, remember to use pitted dates or pit them your self to make sure they mix easily.

Soak Your Dates With Sizzling Water and Baking Soda

Within the unique recipe Sheena shared with me, the dates are first chopped in a food processor, then soaked in scorching water and baking soda. This can be a simple activity for a commercial-grade equipment like a Robocoupe, however my meals processor struggled to successfully chop up the dates, which caught to the blade. I discovered it a lot simpler to mix the dates after giving them a while to melt within the scorching water and baking soda.

Simply as brining beans with baking soda helps soften them for cooking, soaking the dates with scorching water and baking soda helps tenderize the fruit. As Severe Eats contributor Nik Sharma wrote in his bean-brining investigation, all vegetation comprise pectin, which he describes because the “glue” that holds plant cells collectively. As pectin heats up, it transforms from a tough, insoluble substance right into a smooth, water-soluble materials,” he explains. “As that pectin sitting between the cells softens and dissolves in water, the cells start to collapse,” he writes. 

The recent water helps to rehydrate the fruit, whereas the sodium in baking soda—sodium bicarbonate—makes the pectin within the dates extra soluble. Simply quarter-hour of soaking within the water–baking soda combination softens them sufficient that they mix simply right into a clean paste. Right here, I purée them utterly for a smoother batter, although you’ll be able to actually depart the date combination barely chunky in order for you extra texture in your cake.

No Gritty Sauce, Please!

The cake alone is scrumptious, however to me, the perfect a part of sticky toffee pudding is the sauce that is poured generously all around the cake. It’s easy and requires just some substances—unsalted butter, darkish brown sugar, salt, vanilla extract, and heavy cream—however it’s important that you just whisk adequately to make sure the sugar and salt dissolve. Simply preserve whisking till the whole lot is silky clean, and you may’t go improper. Gritty sauce could make or break sticky toffee pudding, turning what may have been a luxurious dessert right into a lackluster one. 

Served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or dollop of whipped cream, this sticky toffee pudding is heat and comforting, and the right dessert to cap off a cold autumn night. And also you don’t even want a Scottish mother-in-law to make it for you.