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Find out how to Make Sticky Toffee Pudding, the Basic British Dessert

Why It Works

  • Medjool dates add a strong caramel-like taste to the cake.
  • Soaking the dates with sizzling water and baking soda helps soften them, making the fruit simpler to purée for a smoother batter.
  • Seasoning each the cake and sauce with salt prevents it from being overly candy.

I met my husband, Lewis, after 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 grew to become 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 trying to recreate the dish at house. A TripAdvisor person calls it the very best dessert they’ve ever eaten, saying they’d return to the brewery for the dessert alone. Although my in-laws are now 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 likely one of the greatest desserts on the earth.

Critical Eats / Amanda Suarez


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 Nineteen 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 difficult, Sharrow Bay Nation Home Lodge’s late chef Francis Coulson as soon as instructed a journalist on the Telegraph that the recipe got here to him from an area girl, who obtained the recipe from a buddy 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 buddy?

In an try and get a solution, I seemed by means of many, many aged cookbooks, newspapers, and magazines to attempt to discover the primary printed recipe for sticky toffee pudding. The earliest point out of “sticky toffee pudding” I might 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 as we speak.

The following 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 excellent 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 as we speak, since he’s usually credited with having popularized it. 

Though I couldn’t discover references to sticky toffee pudding in print earlier than 1976, there are many previous 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 off breadcrumbs. Most of those conventional puddings had been steamed, although some had been baked. Lately, baking is the norm for many house cooks, together with myself.  My hunch is that someplace alongside the way in which, a curious cook dinner riffed on these puddings and got here up with what we all know as sticky toffee pudding as we speak. Whereas there aren’t any breadcrumbs, lemon juice, or brandy in as we speak’s sticky toffee pudding, there are nonetheless loads of dates, butter, and sugar.

Critical Eats / Amanda Suarez


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 Finest Dates to Use for Sticky Toffee Pudding

I favor 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 may get your arms on, they’ll work simply positive. Whichever selection you select, you’ll want to use pitted dates or pit them your self to make sure they mix easily.

Soak Your Dates With Scorching Water and Baking Soda

Within the authentic recipe Sheena shared with me, the dates are first chopped in a meals processor, then soaked in sizzling water and baking soda. This can be a straightforward process 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 sizzling water and baking soda.

Simply as brining beans with baking soda helps soften them for cooking, soaking the dates with sizzling water and baking soda helps tenderize the fruit. As Critical 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 gentle, 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 easy paste. Right here, I purée them fully for a smoother batter, although you may actually go away the date combination barely chunky in order for you extra texture in your cake.

Critical Eats / Amanda Suarez


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 everywhere in the cake. It’s easy and requires only a few elements—unsalted butter, darkish brown sugar, salt, vanilla extract, and heavy cream—nevertheless it’s important that you just whisk adequately to make sure the sugar and salt dissolve. Simply hold whisking till every thing is silky easy, and you may’t go improper. Gritty sauce could make or break sticky toffee pudding, turning what might 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.

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