Mary Berry Sticky Toffee Pudding

If there is one recipe that turned me into a fully committed Mary Berry devotee, this is it. I’d made her Victoria sponge, I’d worked through her lemon drizzle, but the first time I pulled a Mary Berry sticky toffee pudding out of the oven and poured that sauce over the warm sponge, I genuinely thought I should phone someone to tell them.

Sticky toffee pudding is one of those puddings that sounds a bit cheffy and involved, and yet this version is so straightforward it feels almost cheeky. It’s a traybake. Everything goes into one bowl. The sauce takes about five minutes. And the result is a deep, dark, sticky, buttery pudding that gets demolished in our house without a single scrap left.

What makes this version interesting is that it doesn’t use dates. A lot of sticky toffee puddings rely on dates for their stickiness and depth of flavour, but Mary Berry gets there with black treacle and muscovado sugar instead. The result is slightly lighter, with a cleaner toffee flavour, and honestly? It’s converted a few date-sceptics in my family. 

This is a pudding for cold evenings, for Sunday after a roast, for when someone at the table deserves a treat and you want the kitchen to smell incredible for an hour. It serves six to eight, reheats brilliantly, and the sauce can be made three days ahead. It’s basically perfect.

Key Takeaways

• This version skips dates entirely. Black treacle and muscovado sugar give the stickiness and depth instead, resulting in a lighter, cleaner toffee flavour.
• A curdled-looking batter after the milk goes in is completely normal for this recipe and bakes out perfectly. Don’t over-mix trying to fix it.
• Dish shape changes your bake time. A wide, shallow 1.75-litre dish bakes in 35 to 40 minutes. A deeper, narrower dish needs an extra 10 to 15 minutes and should be checked by pressing the centre, not by colour.
• Sauce the pudding while both are hot. The warm sponge soaks up the sauce properly; a cooled pudding just has sauce sitting on top.
• The sponge can be made a day ahead, and the sauce up to three days ahead. Both freeze well for up to three months, kept separately.
• If you’re feeding more than four people, make one and a half times the sauce quantity. It always gets finished.

What you’ll need

For the sponge

• 100g butter, softened (unsalted or salted both work fine)
• 175g light muscovado sugar
• 225g self-raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 2 tbsp black treacle
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature
• 250ml whole milk

For the toffee sauce

• 150g butter
• 150g light muscovado sugar
• 300ml double cream

You’ll also need a 1.75-litre wide-based, shallow ovenproof dish. The wide, shallow shape matters more than you might think, so resist the urge to use a deep casserole dish instead.

A note on the ingredients

Black treacle: this is the ingredient that gives the sponge its dark colour and that slightly bitter, rich undertone. Don’t swap it for golden syrup – it’ll bake up pale and one-dimensional. If you genuinely can’t find treacle, dark molasses is the closest alternative.

Light muscovado sugar: this has a fudgy, lightly caramel quality that ordinary caster sugar can’t replicate. If you can’t get it, light soft brown sugar will do the job, but muscovado is worth seeking out. Most larger supermarkets stock it.

Butter temperature: your butter needs to be genuinely soft, not cold from the fridge and not melted. Leave it out for at least an hour before you start.

How to make Mary Berry’s sticky toffee pudding

Preheat your oven to 180°C / 160°C fan / Gas 4. Butter your ovenproof dish generously.

Step 1: make the batter

Put the butter, muscovado sugar, self-raising flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, treacle and eggs into a large bowl. Using an electric hand whisk, beat everything together for about 30 seconds until just combined. It won’t look particularly smooth at this stage and that’s fine.

Step 2: add the milk

Gradually pour in the milk, whisking as you go, until the batter is smooth. At this point the batter may look slightly curdled or a bit lumpy. Do not panic. This is completely normal with this recipe and it bakes out beautifully. Don’t be tempted to keep mixing to fix it.

Step 3: bake the pudding

Pour the batter into your prepared dish and bake for 35 to 40 minutes. The pudding is ready when it’s well risen, deep brown on top, and springs back when you press it gently in the centre. If you press it and it feels wobbly or leaves an indent, give it another five minutes.

Step 4: make the toffee sauce

While the pudding is baking, make the sauce. Put the butter, muscovado sugar and double cream into a saucepan over a low heat. Stir until the butter melts and the sugar dissolves, then bring to the boil and let it bubble for one minute, stirring constantly. Take it off the heat. It should be glossy, smooth and smell absolutely incredible.

Step 5: sauce and serve

When the pudding comes out of the oven, pour half the sauce over the hot sponge straight away. It’ll soak in slightly as it cools. Pour the rest into a jug to serve alongside. Serve warm with cream, custard or vanilla ice cream.

Tips I’ve picked up from making this many, many times

Dish size genuinely changes your baking time. A wide, shallow dish means the batter spreads out thinly and bakes in 35 minutes. If you use a smaller, deeper dish, the middle will still be raw when the top looks done. Budget an extra 10 to 15 minutes and check by pressing the centre rather than going by colour.

Soft butter, not melted. I know I mentioned this in the ingredients but it’s worth repeating because I have been in a hurry and tried to speed things up with slightly too-cold butter, and the batter ends up with lumpy bits of butter that don’t incorporate properly. Leave it out well in advance or cut it into small cubes to soften faster.

Pour the sauce while the pudding is still hot. The warm sponge absorbs the sauce properly. If you leave it to cool and then sauce it, it just sits on top rather than soaking in. Hot pudding, hot sauce, immediately.

Make more sauce than you think you need. The recipe makes a good amount but in my house, everyone wants extra. I now routinely make one and a half times the sauce quantity whenever I’m feeding more than four people. Nobody has ever complained about too much toffee sauce.

If your sauce splits or looks greasy, you’ve either had the heat too high or stopped stirring at the wrong moment. Take it off the heat straight away and whisk in a tablespoon of warm cream. It should come back together quickly. Keep the heat low and steady going forward.

Treacle is sticky and annoying to measure. Lightly oil your tablespoon before measuring it out and the treacle will slide off cleanly instead of sitting stubbornly in the bowl of the spoon. A small thing but it makes a difference.

Variations worth trying

Sticky toffee pudding with ginger: add a teaspoon of ground ginger and a teaspoon of mixed spice to the dry ingredients. This is Mary Berry’s own festive variation and it is genuinely excellent at Christmas. It makes the whole thing feel a bit more wintry and special.

Individual puddings: pour the batter into well-buttered individual pudding moulds or ramekins and reduce the baking time to around 20 to 25 minutes. Great for dinner parties where you want everyone to have their own little pudding moment.

The date version: if you want the more traditional sticky toffee pudding experience with dates, soak 200g of chopped dates in 250ml of boiling water with a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda for ten minutes, then fold the whole lot into a slightly adjusted batter. The result is denser, stickier and more intensely flavoured. Both versions are brilliant, they’re just different.

What to serve it with

Vanilla ice cream is my personal favourite alongside this. The cold creaminess against the hot sticky pudding is one of those combinations that feels almost unfairly good. My eldest is firmly in the custard camp and my youngest insists on both, which I respect enormously.

Lightly whipped double cream is the most elegant option if you’re serving this to guests and want it to feel a bit more special without much extra effort. Pour-from-the-carton double cream also works and requires zero effort, which has its own merit on a Sunday evening.

A small pinch of flaky sea salt over the top just before serving is not traditional but it is genuinely delicious. It cuts through the sweetness just enough.

Storage and making ahead

Making ahead: this pudding was practically designed for it! The sponge can be baked up to a day in advance, covered and left at room temperature. The toffee sauce keeps in the fridge for up to three days. When you’re ready to serve, warm the pudding in the oven at 160°C / 140°C fan for about 15 to 20 minutes until hot through, then warm the sauce gently in a pan before pouring.

Room temperature: if you’ve sauced the pudding already, cover and keep at room temperature for up to 24 hours. If you’ve kept them separate, the baked sponge will keep for a day at room temperature.

In the fridge: the baked sponge (without sauce) keeps in the fridge for up to three days, covered well. The sauce keeps for three days in an airtight container. Reheat both gently before serving.

In the freezer: both the sponge and the sauce freeze well for up to three months. Freeze them separately, defrost overnight in the fridge, and reheat as above. The texture of the sponge is still excellent after freezing, which is not always true of puddings.

Questions people always ask about this recipe

Why doesn’t this Mary Berry sticky toffee pudding have dates in it?

This is Mary Berry’s version from her Everyday book, and it deliberately leaves out dates. Instead of getting the depth and stickiness from dates, it uses black treacle and muscovado sugar, which give a slightly different but equally delicious result. The flavour is a bit more caramel-forward and slightly less intensely sticky than the date version. Both are brilliant, and this one is arguably easier because there’s no soaking step involved.

My batter looks curdled after I added the milk. Have I ruined it?

No, not at all. Mary Berry’s own recipe notes that the batter may look slightly curdled once the milk goes in, and this is completely expected with this method. The combination of the bicarbonate of soda and the treacle with the milk creates that appearance. It bakes out perfectly and you’ll never know it happened once the pudding comes out of the oven.

Can I make this in a different dish?

You can, but the shape of the dish affects the baking time more than most people expect. The recipe is designed for a wide, shallow 1.75-litre dish, which allows the batter to spread out and bake evenly in 35 to 40 minutes. If you use a deeper, narrower dish, the centre will take significantly longer to cook through. Keep checking by pressing the centre rather than relying on the timer, and don’t worry if it needs an extra 10 to 15 minutes.

Can I reheat sticky toffee pudding?

Yes, and it reheats really well. Cover the sponge (with or without the sauce already on it) and warm it in the oven at 160°C / 140°C fan for 15 to 20 minutes. You can also reheat individual portions in the microwave for about 60 to 90 seconds. Warm the sauce separately in a small pan over a low heat, stirring as it heats through, then pour over just before serving.

What can I use instead of muscovado sugar?

Light soft brown sugar is the most straightforward swap. The flavour will be slightly less deep and fudgy but it’ll still work well. Dark muscovado sugar will give you a stronger, more intense toffee flavour with a slight liquorice note from the treacle. Ordinary caster or granulated sugar won’t give you the right result here, so it’s worth finding a muscovado substitute rather than skipping the brown sugar entirely.

If you’ve never made Mary Berry sticky toffee pudding before, I genuinely can’t think of a better place to start with her baking. It’s one of those recipes that looks much more impressive than the effort involved, and once you’ve made it once you’ll find yourself coming back to it every time the evenings turn cold.

The sauce alone is worth the exercise. I’ve been known to make a double batch just to have some in the fridge for pouring over vanilla ice cream later in the week. No regrets whatsoever. 

Let me know in the comments if you make it, and whether your household is team custard, team ice cream, or team both-please!

And if you’re on a roll with Mary Berry recipes, you might also want to have a look at these posts:

Mary Berry Victoria Sponge with Buttercream

Mary Berry Swiss Roll

Mary Berry Treacle Tart

Mary Berry Buttercream

Mary Berry Viennese Whirls

Mary Berry Coffee & Walnut Cake

Mary Berry Ginger Cake

Mary Berry Blueberry Muffins

Mary Berry Sausage Rolls

Mary Berry Raspberry Jam

Mary Berry Marmalade

Mary Berry Cheese Scones

Mary Berry Chocolate Swiss Roll

Mary Berry Apple Pie

Mary Berry Drop Scones

Mary Berry Chocolate Brownies

Mary Berry Bread and Butter Pudding

Mary Berry Rice Pudding

Mary Berry Yorkshire Puddings

Mary Berry Apple Cake

Mary Berry Lemon Drizzle Traybake