Vegan Sticky Toffee Pudding

5 from 3 votes

Vegan Sticky Toffee Pudding is the ultimate crowd-pleasing dessert! Gently spiced sticky date pudding recipe with compulsory, rich toffee sauce! Proper comfort food, stick to your ribs British pud!

Course Afternoon Tea, Cake, Pudding, Traybake

Cuisine British

Keyword gluten free, sticky toffee pudding, vegan

Prep Time 15

Cook Time 25

Total Time 40

Servings generous servings

Calories 587kcal

Author Jo Allison

Equipment

Ingredients

Pudding

200 g dried dates, stones removed & roughly chopped see notes
1 tsp bicarbonate soda (baking soda) gluten free if necessary
200 ml boiling water
100 ml soya milk see notes
80 ml sunflower or rapeseed oil see notes
150 g brown sugar either light or dark is fine
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
200 g self-raising flour, gluten-free if necessary see notes
1 teaspoon mixed spice see notes
75 g pecans optional

Toffee Sauce

100 g unsalted vegan butter I use Flora Plants or Naturli
150 g brown sugar (light or dark)
150 ml single soya cream
1 tablespoon treacle (molasses) optional

Metric - US Customary

Instructions

Sticky Toffee Pudding

Preheat the oven to 180C/350G/Gas Mark 4 and prepare your baking tin/dish by lightly greasing it and lining with baking paper. I use rectangular cake tin 28x18cm/11x8inch.
Put roughly chopped dates in a small bowl with baking soda and cover with 200ml (0.85 cup) of boiling water. Let it sit for 10 minutes or so.
In a large bowl mix or sift together self-raising flour and mixed spice. I like to use a small whisk here
In a blender mix together dates mixture (including all of the soaking water), soya milk, oil, vanilla extract and sugar until smooth.
Pour the wet mixture over the flour with mixed spice and mix in gently, using nice folding motion until all the flour has been incorporated. Try not to overmix your pudding batter.
Fold in some chopped pecans or walnuts if using and pour the batter into prepared baking tin.
Bake your pudding in preheated oven for approximately 25-30 minutes until skewer inserted into centre comes out clean.
Let sticky toffee pudding cool slightly in the tin before serving.

Toffee Sauce

While the sticky toffee pudding is baking prepare your toffee sauce.
Add brown sugar, vegan butter and treacle/molasses (if using) into a medium saucepan.
Let these melt slowly on low heat stirring until you get nice and smooth looking sauce.
Pour in vegan cream and stir it in, let the mixture come to a gentle simmer for couple of minutes and take the sauce off the heat.
Serve pudding with generous amount of toffee sauce and some vegan ice cream!

Notes

Nutritional information is approximate, per serving (based on 8 servings including toffee sauce) and should be treated as a guideline only.
Any dried dates will do here although Medjool dates are by far the nicest.
I like using soya milk in vegan baking as it gives the most predictable results due to its high protein content but feel free to use any other plant based milk instead.
Use neutral tasting oil here (light olive oil or cold pressed rapeseed oil are the best).
If you don't have any self-raising flour simply use plain (all-purpose) flour with 2.5 teaspoons of baking powder.
I like adding a bit of mixed spice to my sticky toffee pudding but you can leave it out completely or substitute with ground ginger or cinnamon if you prefer.
Handful of pecans goes really nicely here but you can leave them out or substitute with other nuts (walnuts would be great).
Leftovers will keep in the fridge for up to 5 days.
Freezer friendly for up to 3 months.

TIPS:

Don't overmix the batter. You don't want to incorporate too much air into the batter as it will cause rapid rise of the pudding in the oven followed by equally rapid fall which you'd like to avoid.
Don't worry about the lumps in the batter too much. As long as there are no visible signs of flour you're ready to pour your batter into baking tin and bake.
Once you've mixed your batter and poured it into baking tin get it into preheated oven as soon as possible to ensure nice rise.
Feel free to pour half of the sauce over the entire cake once out of the oven and has cooled a bit but make sure to keep enough to serve with each individual portion. You can even poke some holes in the cake so that the sauce soaks into it.
I found the amount of the sauce in this recipe adequate but feel free to double it if you want, you can always freeze the leftovers.
Vegan sticky toffee pudding is by far best served slightly warm with generous helping of toffee sauce.

Nutrition