How to Make Sticky Toffee Pudding, the Classic British Dessert

I met my husband, Lewis, when I was in university in Scotland, and when we first started dating, a night out usually meant a pint or two at a pub followed by some sticky toffee pudding. One evening, he casually revealed that his mother, Sheena, once worked at the Udny Arms Hotel in Newburgh, Scotland. The hotel is where sticky toffee pudding—a moist British cake made with chopped dates that’s generously drenched in toffee sauce—reportedly originated in the 1960s. It turns out he grew up eating plenty of “STP,” the moniker my in-laws have lovingly given the dessert. 

Sheena brought the recipe with her when she relocated from her home in Scotland to St. Louis, Missouri, and though she seldom made it at home, she shared the recipe with her husband, Dan, and the pudding became a signature dessert on the menu at Schlafly, a brewery he opened in 1991. Give “Schlafly sticky toffee pudding” a quick search in Google, and you will be greeted with numerous results of people attempting to recreate the dish at home. A TripAdvisor user calls it the best dessert they’ve ever eaten, saying they’d return to the brewery for the dessert alone. Though my in-laws are no longer involved with the brewery, Sheena’s take on the Udny Arms Hotel's sticky toffee pudding is still on the menu. And as someone who has eaten and made STP using Sheena's recipe plenty of times, I agree wholeheartedly: It is one of the best desserts in the world.

Where Did Sticky Toffee Pudding Really Come From?

The origins of sticky toffee pudding have been hotly debated. Many publications, including The Telegraph, Taste, and the BBC, credit Sharrow Bay Country House Hotel in Cumbria, England, with having popularized the dessert in the 1970s. Yet, the Udny Arms Hotel claims it first served the dessert in 1967, while the Gait Inn in Millington, a village in Yorkshire, says sticky toffee pudding has been on its menu since 1907. To make matters even more complicated, Sharrow Bay Country House Hotel’s late chef Francis Coulson once told a journalist at the Telegraph that the recipe came to him from a local woman, who received the recipe from a friend 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 friend?

In an attempt to get an answer, I looked through many, many old cookbooks, newspapers, and magazines to try and find the first published recipe for sticky toffee pudding. The earliest mention of “sticky toffee pudding” I could find was in an April 1976 edition of The Observer, but what it referred to was milk-soaked bread fried in butter and drizzled with golden syrup, which is nothing like the STP we know today.

The next mention of sticky toffee pudding happened several months later in November of 1976, this time in The Guardian, where Coulson, the chef from the Sharrow Bay Country House Hotel, is quoted in a discussion about British desserts. Britain has “a great deal to offer with sweets if we get back our confidence,” Coulson tells the writer Dennis Barker. “Things like sticky toffee pudding and Bakewell tarts.” It’s reasonable to assume that the STP Coulson is referring to is, indeed, the dessert we know today, since he’s often credited with having popularized it. 

Although I couldn’t find references to sticky toffee pudding in print before 1976, there are plenty of old recipes in archives for date puddings. Some of these vintage puddings, like the one in Ella Ervilla Kellogg’s 1892 Science in the Kitchen, call for soaking breadcrumbs with milk, cream, and dates, while others instruct cooks to pound pitted dates, then fold the fruit into a mixture of lemon juice, butter, beaten yolks, brandy, sugar, and stale breadcrumbs. Most of these traditional puddings were steamed, though some were baked. These days, baking is the norm for most home cooks, including myself.  My hunch is that somewhere along the way, a curious cook riffed on these puddings and came up with what we know as sticky toffee pudding today. While there are no breadcrumbs, lemon juice, or brandy in today’s sticky toffee pudding, there are still plenty of dates, butter, and sugar.

Wait, It's Not Actually a Pudding?

For those of you who are expecting American-style pudding, you’ve come to the wrong place. This is pudding in the British sense, which refers to anything that can be eaten for dessert, including other classics like Victoria sponge and Eton mess. (The exception is savory pudding, such as like black, white, and Yorkshire pudding, among many others.) Sticky toffee pudding is a cake, and though many British establishments will steam it for a slightly softer and moister version, this iteration of STP is baked.

The Best Dates to Use for Sticky Toffee Pudding

I prefer dried Medjool dates to other varieties when making sticky toffee pudding, as they have rich caramel notes that add depth of flavor to the cake and complement the buttery toffee sauce. Barhi dates, which are notoriously sweet with hints of butterscotch, would also be a delicious option. Deglet Noor dates aren’t quite as flavorful as Medjool or Barhi dates, but if they’re the only dried dates you can get your hands on, they’ll work just fine. Whichever variety you choose, be sure to use pitted dates or pit them yourself to ensure they blend smoothly.

Soak Your Dates With Hot Water and Baking Soda

In the original recipe Sheena shared with me, the dates are first chopped in a food processor, then soaked in hot water and baking soda. This may be an easy task for a commercial-grade appliance like a Robocoupe, but my food processor struggled to effectively chop up the dates, which stuck to the blade. I found it much easier to blend the dates after giving them some time to soften in the hot water and baking soda.

Just as brining beans with baking soda helps soften them for cooking, soaking the dates with hot water and baking soda helps tenderize the fruit. As Serious Eats contributor Nik Sharma wrote in his bean-brining investigation, all plants contain pectin, which he describes as the “glue” that holds plant cells together. As pectin heats up, it transforms from a hard, insoluble substance into a soft, water-soluble material,” he explains. “As that pectin sitting between the cells softens and dissolves in water, the cells begin to fall apart,” he writes. 

The hot water helps to rehydrate the fruit, while the sodium in baking soda—sodium bicarbonate—makes the pectin in the dates more soluble. Just 15 minutes of soaking in the water–baking soda mixture softens them enough that they blend easily into a smooth paste. Here, I purée them completely for a smoother batter, though you can certainly leave the date mixture slightly chunky if you want more texture in your cake.

No Gritty Sauce, Please!

The cake alone is delicious, but to me, the very best part of sticky toffee pudding is the sauce that's poured generously all over the cake. It’s simple and requires just a few ingredients—unsalted butter, dark brown sugar, salt, vanilla extract, and heavy cream—but it’s essential that you whisk adequately to ensure the sugar and salt dissolve. Just keep whisking until everything is silky smooth, and you can't go wrong. Gritty sauce can make or break sticky toffee pudding, turning what could have been a sumptuous dessert into a lackluster one. 

Served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or dollop of whipped cream, this sticky toffee pudding is warm and comforting, and the perfect dessert to cap off a chilly autumn evening. And you don’t even need a Scottish mother-in-law to make it for you.