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Gorgeous, rich and delightful homemade chocolate sticky toffee pudding with homemade chocolate sticky toffee sauce and served with ice cream!

So why have I not published this recipe any sooner? That is the main question here. I published my sticky toffee pudding a while ago, followed by my biscoff sticky toffee pudding, but this chocolate sticky toffee is probably the most luxurious pudding yet and I completely and utterly adore it.

Classic puddings

I am obviously obsessed with all things classic at the moment, with my fifth book ‘classic’ coming out soon. For me, as long as something is a play on a classic, or something that is very classic jane’s patisserie, it counts. I just adore luxurious puddings that can be made over and over again as everyone adores them.

New york cheesecake, bread and butter pudding, school cake, pavlova and so on… there are so many delicious classic puddings that you all adore, and sticky toffee is definitely one of them as well. I love retro classic baking and adding twists as always, but this delicious bake is a mix of a classic chocolate pudding mixed with sticky toffee and I can’t get enough of it.

Sticky Toffee pudding

Whenever I am asked the question of “what is your favourite dessert?” the answer is ALWAYS going to be sticky toffee pudding for me. I have started an accidental ranking of local sticky toffee’s with my other half, and if it’s on the menu, I will order it – no matter how full I am.

The internet says “Sticky toffee pudding is a classic British dessert consisting of a moist, date-filled sponge cake drenched in a rich toffee sauce, often served with vanilla custard or ice cream” – and it is ICONIC.

I understand that the word/ingredient of ‘dates’ might put people off, I can promise you and assure you that it’s worth including the dates in a pudding like this. The natural flavour of dates increases the flavour of the toffee. You can either leave the dates chunky if you like that, or you can blend them to a paste so that you don’t have the texture, but the flavour is still there.

Base pudding mix

The actual pudding mix is easy to make, and generally a throw it together in a bowl and mix kinda thing apart from maybe needing a blender. I use a medium sized baking dish to bake the pudding in (they can vary) but it’s roughly 20cmx30cm.

Dates – I prefer to use medjool dates as I adore the flavour, but you can use any. Make sure they are de-stoned, and finely chop them.
Butter – the butter for the pudding can be a block butter, or baking spread
Sugar – I prefer to use dark brown soft sugar for a proper sticky toffee flavour, but light brown sugar works also
Flour – I use self raising flour when making this pudding
Cocoa – the way in which we make it chocolatey – I add a strong and super chocolatey cocoa powder to get the best flavour (I use this 100% cocoa powder)
Raising agents – A little bit of baking powder and bicarbonate of soda gets the perfect rise in the pudding
Treacle – black treacle is important again for the proper sticky toffee flavour, but can be substituted for golden syrup
Eggs – I use medium eggs in my baking, but two large would work well for this
Milk – I always use full-fat whole milk in my bakes for best results

How to bake

I start by making my date mixture – add the finely chopped dates to a bowl with the boiling water and let them soak. After ten minutes you can either crack on with the recipe or you can now blend them to a fine texture if you want to avoid the date lumps. Either way, you do add the water into the mixture.

In a new bowl, you beat together the butter and sugar until creamy to make sure there are no butter lumps, and then you can add the flour, raising agents, treacle, eggs, milk and date mixture and then you can combine this. I use an electric hand mixer, but a stand mixer will work, or a bowl with a spatula and a little arm power.

I bake the pudding in the oven at 160ºc in a fan oven, for about 35-40 minutes. This is the sort of dessert that could vary in baking time due to different ingredients or baking dish (for example, I avoid using glass dishes as that can change baking times quite drastically). Whilst it’s baking, I make the sauce as I like to serve my pudding hot, but you can prepare the pudding in advance.

Chocolate toffee sauce

So, compared to my first sticky toffee recipe, I decided to increase the amount of sauce as I really wanted to make this pudding saucey (like a self saucing pudding really) – and it’s chocolatey as well. It’s really easy to make as well, so you just need a medium sized pan on the hob.

Butter – whilst you can use bakings spread for the sponge, I’d recommend actual butter for the sauce to prevent splitting (the block kind in foil)
Sugar – I use dark brown soft sugar, I’d use the same as you used for the sponge
Treacle – again, I prefer black treacle for a rich flavour, but golden syrup works well
Cream – double/heavy cream is best, single cream or low fat won’t work in the same way
Vanilla – I love to add a little sweetness, but this is optional
Chocolate – I then add dark chocolate (70%+ dark is best for a luxurious flavour and because the rest of the sauce is adding sweetness). Lower cocoa chocolate may make the sauce slightly sickly or actually split.

I add the butter, sugar, treacle, cream and vanilla to my pan and melt on a low heat until the sugar has dissolved and the butter has melted. Differently to the original toffee sauce, I don’t boil this sauce for a minute, but I take it off the heat add stir through the chocolate until it’s melted as the chocolate thickens the sauce instead of the heat.

Tips and tricks

I pour half to two thirds of the sauce onto the pudding once the pudding has been baked and I let this sauce soak in slightly when the pudding is fresh out of the oven. The rest of the sauce I pour onto each piece (with a scoop of ice cream)

This is best served fresh, but will last 3+ days in the fridge
The pudding can be made in advance and frozen
The sauce can be made in advance and kept in the fridge for 3+ days
You can reheat the pudding once if you have leftovers
I use a 30x20cm size dish, but anything roughly similar works well