How to cook perfect sticky toffee pudding

STP, as it's known to aficionados (ie me) sounds like the ultimate school dinner staple; stodgy, gooey and unapologetically sweet, it's just the thing to set you up for a game of lacrosse, a page of trig, and a whole trunk full of itching powder, apple pie beds and other such jolly wheezes. But you won't find Enid Blyton's schoolgirls tucking into sticky toffee pud after lights out, or Billy Bunter scoffing the stuff from his tuck box, because, as every food nerd will tell you, it was invented in the 1970s by Francis Coulson of the Lake District's Sharrow Bay Hotel.

Mr Coulson may well have been even better at publicity than he was at puddings, however, because according to Simon Hopkinson, the late and "legendary" chef once admitted to him that he'd adapted the idea from one Mrs Martin of Lancashire. Some years later, this good lady's son contacted Hopkinson to tell him she'd been given the recipe by a Canadian friend, which makes sticky toffee pudding about as British as flipper pie – a fact to bear in mind next time it comes up at a pub quiz (as long as you don't mind being the kind of contestant who quibbles with the official answers). No matter, wherever it comes from, I'm glad it made the trip.

Although it's often lumped in with similarly lumpen dishes involving syrup and treacle, STP is actually much more like a giant muffin than a sponge pudding, made with a distinctly liquid batter, rather than a creamed mix of butter, sugar, eggs and flour. The genius of the dish is, I think, the dates, which add a rich, sticky sweetness without making it any heavier than such puddings should be.

The "original"

Coulson's recipe, as recorded by Gary Rhodes (who, in an audacious attempt at thickening the plot, bills it as "a good old English pudding which is made all over the country"), uses chopped dates, softened in boiling water, and folded into creamed butter and sugar, along with eggs, self-raising flour, and vanilla essence. It has a fluffy but moist texture, and I like the large pieces of date. I find the accompanying sauce, made from a mixture of double cream, treacle and demerara sugar far too rich for the pudding – it's blandly creamy, rather than stickily toffeeish.

The updated original

Stolen or not, I prefer Coulson's to Hopkinson's updated version of Mrs Martin's original recipes, which blends the dates to a purée, and mixes everything together in one go instead of carefully folding the dates into the other ingredients. He's presumably right about the fact that any benefit this gives is destroyed by the addition of hot water, but it can't be denied that Coulson's recipe rises higher than his, and the squidgy chopped dates give it a more interesting texture.

The maverick

Ever-modish, young Jamie Oliver makes his STP with yoghurt, which keeps it moist, but weighs the batter down – and his cornucopia of sweet spices give the whole thing a gingerbread flavour. He also, for reasons unexplained, adds 2 tbsp of Ovaltine to the batter, which gives the cake a rich, dark colour, but makes it taste like bedtime.

I do like his sauce though: rather than just cream, he's made a proper toffee sauce by melting butter and light muscovado sugar together, and then stirred in a mere 140ml double cream. It's more assertively flavoured, and light enough to allow the addition of further dairy products on the plate – after all, what's a slab of hot STP without a scoop of ice cream?

The bizarre

If the yoghurt and malted chocolate drink was weird, Tamasin Day-Lewis' version, in her compendium All You Can Eat, is downright wrongheaded – although, to be fair, she credits it to Joyce Molyneaux of the Carved Angel.

On the basis that the original, with "its cascade of toffee sauce … and the sweetest fruit of all, dates" is "tooth-achingly sweet", Molyneaux has used dried apricots instead: "their acidic sharpness more than stands up to and contrasts with the velvety thick toffee sauce". I find the contrast jarring – the fruit seems almost sharp, and, although I can't deny that steaming it, rather than baking it, makes it very moist, I'm not convinced that losing the crisp top and fluffy middle makes this worthwhile.

Variations

Delia not only grills her puddings briefly after baking, which gives them a deliciously crunchy top, but adds pecans: I like the texture of the nuts, but I can't really taste them, so I substitute walnuts instead – this is one dish sweet enough to stand up to their bitterness.

I prefer Jamie's toffee sauce to any of the butterscotchy varieties which appear to have been inspired by Francis Coulson's "original" version, but it strikes me that I'm missing a trick by simply pouring it over the pudding – it would be nice to have that sweet stickiness throughout. After doing a little research online, I borrow an idea from Mani Niall's book, Sweet, and put half the sauce into the bottom of the dish before adding the batter. His tip about briefly freezing the sauce to firm it up while you make the rest of the pudding is inspired. Spice-wise, I've restricted myself to a sober pinch of cloves, to complement the dates without overpowering them.

Perfect sticky toffee pudding

A good sticky toffee pudding should be more than simple sugar hit – add nuts, for texture, and cloves, for a hint of spice, and this is one transatlantic migrant which will have no problem getting its visa renewed.

Serves 6

175g medjool dates, stoned and roughly chopped
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
300ml boiling water
50g unsalted butter, softened
80g golden caster sugar
80g dark muscovado sugar
2 eggs, beaten
175g flour
1 tsp baking powder
Pinch of ground cloves
75g walnuts

For the sauce:
115g unsalted butter
75g golden caster sugar
40g dark muscovado sugar
140ml double cream

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C. Butter a baking dish approximately 24cm x 24cm.

2. Make the sauce by putting all the ingredients into a pan with a pinch of salt and heating slowly until the butter has melted, then turn up the heat and bring to the boil. Boil for about 4 minutes, until the sauce has thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon. Pour half the sauce into the base of the dish and then put it in the freezer while you make the rest of the pudding.

3. Put the dates and bicarbonate of soda in a heatproof dish and cover with the boiling water. Leave to soften while you prepare the rest of the pudding.

4. Beat together the butter and sugar until fluffy, and then beat in the eggs, a little at a time. Stir in the flour, baking powder, cloves and a pinch of salt until well combined, and then add the dates and their soaking water, and the walnuts, and mix well.

5. Take the dish out of the freezer and pour the batter on top of the toffee sauce. Put into the oven for 30 minutes, until firm to the touch, and then take out of the oven.

6. Heat the grill to medium, and poke a few small holes evenly over the surface with a skewer or fork, and then pour over the rest of the sauce. Put briefly under the grill, keeping an eye on it as it can easily burn. Serve with vanilla ice cream.

Is sticky toffee pudding the perfect marriage of stodge and sweetness, or does the name promise more than the dish delivers? What do you like to add to yours – and do you like it with custard, ice cream, or (shock horror), a dollop of yoghurt?