Sticky Toffee Apple Pudding

Sticky Toffee Apple Pudding, a lush comfort-food dessert with apple to the classic dates. It freezes well too, making it a handy recipe to make in advance for last-minute dinner parties.

Shall we Make Some S.T.P.?

Known affectionately in our family as S.T.P.: Sticky Toffee Pudding. I make this, however, with an added grated apple, giving it a twist to the classic. Here’s a Sticky Toffee Apple Pudding – adding a little extra fruit to the decadent luscious toffee scrumptiousness!

This pudding goes against my French-style eating habits: I love dessert but shy away from over-sugared and filling puddings.  This is our exception – and the version below is my final answer to this most delicious dilemma called Sticky Toffee Pudding Syndrome.

Sticky Toffee Pudding Macarons

Another reason? For some fun, I converted Sticky Toffee Pudding into a STP macaron for my first book, Mad About Macarons – making it an entirely gluten-free version.  I also made them into a giant macaron dessert for the book’s macaron dessert chapter, a kind of Xtra Large S.T.P. macaron!

Funnily enough, some American critics initially thought that S.T.P. was a “bit too British” for a macaron book – but little did they know that the recipe for sticky toffee pudding may well have originated in Canada, just like my Scottish Granny’s Matrimonial Cake (oaty date squares).

Growing up with STP, my parents would often drive my wee brother and I down to the Lake District. It didn’t take us long to discover THE highlight of any of our trips there: we’d make a mandatory stop at the legendary Cartmel Village Shop for a S.T.P. dose from their “Home of Sticky Toffee”.
I distinctly remember the difference over many other sticky toffee puddings we tried in Scotland: it was distinctly dark and lush, covered in the darkest ever toffee sauce.

Living in France has meant the necessity of making this at home, as it’s not something we can just run out to our local pâtisserie or boulangerie and find – so this Sticky Toffee Apple Pudding was created along the way. It’s often requested by my beau-père, Jean-Pierre, who’s accent is adorable: can we have more of that steeecky toa-fee pood-eeeng?

Well, here it is, beau-papa.

Sticky Toffee Family-Sized Pudding

There are two ways of making this recipe.

Normally it’s made as a flat cake, batter sitting (nearly floating) on top of a pool of toffee sauce in a buttered ovenproof pie or gratin dish and serve spooned into pudding bowls or – in this case – teacups, inspired by Carina Contini’s family recipe for Sticky Ginger & Date Pudding in her Kitchen Garden Cookbook.

I adapted the recipe, cutting down slightly on the butter and sugar, plus I added a grated apple, since my Granny always mixed dates with apple – it’s a deliciously nostalgic thing I can’t help continuing. Then by adding 2 tablespoons of dark rum to the sticky toffee pudding sauce it just made it extra heavenly for those cold, dark nights.

You could call this version a Tipsy Sticky Toffee Apple Pudding!

Individual Sticky Toffee Puddings

However, the above family-sized flat cake version has one HUGE problem: we normally have at least second portions and it can get out of control. It’s what we call the Sticky Toffee Pudding Syndrome. So, to avoid such sticky toffee impulses, my preferred method is to pour the batter into individual silicone moulds. It’s just enough. Full. Stop.

Moreover, they’re so easy to freeze when removed from their silicone moulds and reheat when needed – making them so handy to serve stress-free for a dinner party later!

We eat half and freeze the rest before anyone can ask for more.