I’m thinking about making this for dessert on Thanksgiving.
Any recommendations or recipes, or styles that you have eaten and enjoyed?
It would be easiest to bake this in a rectangular dish for transport, with extra sauce separate for dousing at the table, but I also have a small bundt pan that fits into a larger pyrex dish, so that could also work.
Some recipes I’ve collected from here & elsewhere:
I have never made it. Some restaurants package the sauce separately when I order take-out. I ordered some this week! (I fell off the health wagon in a bad way)
I figured someone must have come up with a Pumpkin Spice Sticky Toffee, if Pumpkin Spice Panettone exists
or add pumpkin
Harters
(John Hartley - a culinary patriot, cooking and eating in northwest England)
6
I’ve never made it, not least because someone at our local farmers market sells an excellent one. And it’s a dessert that appears on the menu of just about every bistro type restaurant in the UK.
But I do have a story about it. There may be the odd very long standing contributor who may recall that years back, in Chowhound days, my wife was very ill for a long time. It was a long time for a diagnosis and I was very fearful for the future. She was barely eating and, certainly, had no interest in food. So, in those days, it was great to play on the What’s for Dinner thread as it was the only place for me to chat about food. It was very much a saviour for me, on a daily basis - folk around then may never appreciate just how much I owe you. Anyway, in due course, J gets a diagnosis (sarcoidosis) and starts to receive the only treatment - steroids. It’s a long process and, 14 years on, she’s still under the care of the hospital although there’s no need for any active treatment.
So, her appetite starts to return and, a few weeks later, in April 2010, we decide she’s well enough for a short break. We decide on the Sharrow Bay hotel in the Lake District. And a lovely hotel it was. But the point of this story is that, Sharrow Bay was owned for many years by the late Francis Coulson who is generally credited with inventing sticky toffee pudding. History disputes that - he may have got the recipe from a woman who lived locally, who had got it from a Canadian friend). But let’s not let facts get in the way of a good story. Needless to say, it’s what I ordered for dessert on the first evening. My review of the meal said " Without doubt, this is the finest version I’ve tasted – light, yet deliciously rich. Perfect caramel sauce".
There are a number of websites which claim to offer Coulson’s original recipe. Unfortunately the one which claimed to have got the recipe direct from Sharrow Bay seems to have disappeared since I last looked for it, maybe five years back. But this one seems pretty accurate as best I recall.
FWIW, Coulson didnt originally call it sticky toffee pudding but, “icky sticky toffee sponge”.
In the past few years I’ve foregone the individual servings and now I just make a big date cake (my own recipe - happy to share if you’re interested) and top squares a la minute with toffee sauce and whipped cream. This makes the outcome much easier to control, gives me much less stress, and alas, results in much worse presentation…but it’s a trade I’m happy to make.
If you ever happen to want an eggless version, this one is great! As written it’s vegan, but I have also made it successfully with dairy products and it’s even better. https://www.morsovegan.co.uk/blog/sticky-toffee-pudding/
