Sticky Toffee Loaf Cake!

A sweet and delicious sticky toffee loaf cake with the sticky toffee sponge, sticky toffee buttercream frosting, and a sticky toffee sauce!

So, I’VE DELIVERED THE RECIPE YOU ARE AFTER. I realise I sound extremely excited…but there is a reason! I’ve had request after request for a Sticky Toffee Cake for as long as I can remember but I haven’t delivered… until now!

A few weeks ago I shared my white chocolate & raspberry loaf cake, and I am still astounded by how popular it was, so I thought now was the perfect time to post my sticky toffee loaf cake! Just loooook at it!!

Sticky Toffee Cake

So I will fully admit, without shame, that my favourite pudding in the world is a sticky toffee pudding. I just can’t resist, as soon as I see it on a menu or someone suggests it, I want to devour it. So, when it came to levelling up my baking as I always want to do, a sticky toffee cake came to mind. 

A sticky toffee bake is just so beautiful as its rich in the flavour of the natural sugars from the dark brown sugar and treacle, as well as the natural sweetness from dates and all the extras in-between make one of the most delicious ideas in the world, and this cake is definitely one of them. 

Sponge

When it came to the sponge, I could have just done an easy and more classic style sponge, but I really did want that rich and gooey flavour, so there’s a few more ingredients than my usual cake in all honesty. This cake is worth the extra effort to make it as combined with the sticky toffee pudding as possible. 

Dates, bicarbonate of soda, dark brown sugar and black treacle aren’t the usual suspects in my bakes but trust me… they’re worth it.  

• Dates – more on this below, but dates honestly just make this cake SO MUCH BETTER
• Water – sometimes it feels alien to add water to a recipe, but trust the process. You need it to blend the dates
• Bicarbonate of soda – this is also a part of the date mixture
• Butter – for the sponge you can use a baking spread or a block butter
• Sugar – I tend to use dark brown soft sugar for a super sticky toffee flavour, but light brown soft sugar can be used as well 
• Eggs – I use three medium eggs, but two large should work well
• Flour – self raising as always!!!
• Treacle – I use black treacle again for the classic flavour, but golden syrup works really well
• Vanilla – optional as always, but adds a delicious flavour 

Dates

So… for the cake mixture, I tried to stay as true to the ‘sticky toffee pudding’ theme as I could, so this cake DOES contain dates. Just thought I would say as in the jumble of requests for a sticky toffee cake, there was the occasional curve ball of a person who didn’t want dates… 

As this is my first ‘proper’ sticky toffee recipe, I decided to stick to the classic recipe. I’ve made various sticky toffee recipes in my past (more to come, don’t worry!) and ones with dates really do have a lovely taste and are just much more classic. 

You can use medjool dates, regular dates, or even already pre-chopped dates, but you want to soak them in the boiling water with the bicarb for 10 minutes and then blend them until smooth. Because they are blended, you don’t need to moan about the dates being in the cake as it really is worth it (just like adding the coffee to my chocolate fudge cake, despite people not liking coffee). 

Sauce

The sauce is easy as anything make, and it really does just make this cake even better. I wanted to make a homemade sticky toffee sauce for the recipe, just like in the pudding, for the best possible results and oh wow did it work. 

The mixture of double cream, black treacle, dark brown soft sugar and butter may sound a little odd, but it’s perfect. All you need to do is add the ingredients to a pan, and heat on a low heat until the butter has melted and the sugar has dissolved. Then, you can turn up the heat, and boil for one minute and then pour in a bowl and leave to cool. 

Just like with the cake itself, you can use a mixture of light brown soft sugar and golden syrup if you don’t want it as intense as the dark brown and treacle method, or if it’s what you just happen to have in the cupboard. Of course, you can just use a shop bought sauce if you prefer. 

Buttercream

For the frosting on this cake, I wanted to make sure to do an easy topping that would be suitable for anyone, and an American buttercream frosting is the easiest option. The good part is that it is automatically better as you beat in the homemade sticky toffee sauce that you made earlier and it really does just taste so luxurious and heavenly. 

I beat some block unsalted butter (not a spread) on its own for a couple of minutes to really loosen it down and soften the butter. Then mixing in the icing sugar is super easy, and then the toffee sauce as well. I pipe the buttercream onto the cake with my favourite medium 2D closed star piping tip, and then drizzle over some extra sauce and add on some sprinkles/fudge chunks. What more could you want?! 

Tips & Tricks 

• It’s best to use a 2lb loaf tin for this recipe, and I use this one, as it’s quite a chunky loaf cake. Some 2lb loaf tins are smaller than you think so make sure to only fill 2/3 of the tin with the mixture and make cupcakes with the spare mixture if you have any. 
• This cake will last for 3+ days at room temperature once made 
• You can freeze the cake for 3+ months 
• You can swap the dark brown soft sugar for light brown soft sugar
• You can swap the black treacle for golden syrup 
• I use this piping tip for the decoration 
• I use these sprinkles for the decoration 

Sticky Toffee Loaf Cake!

A sweet and delicious sticky toffee loaf cake with the sticky toffee sponge, sticky toffee buttercream frosting, and a sticky toffee sauce!

Print Pin Rate

Category: Cake

Type: Cake

Keyword: Loaf cake, Sticky Toffee

Prep Time: 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 50 minutes minutes

Decorating Time: 30 minutes minutes

Total Time: 1 hour hour 40 minutes minutes

Servings: 12 Slices

Author: Jane's Patisserie

Ingredients

For the Sponge

• 200 g dates (destoned)
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 150 ml boiling water
• 100 g unsalted butter
• 175 g dark brown sugar
• 3 medium eggs
• 200 g self raising flour
• 100 g black treacle
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

For the Sauce

• 150 ml double cream
• 1 tbsp black treacle
• 75 g dark brown sugar
• 50 g unsalted butter

For the Buttercream

• 150 g unsalted butter
• 300 g icing sugar
• 75 g sticky toffee sauce (above)

Decoration

• sprinkles
• fudge pieces
• sticky toffee sauce (above)

Grams - Ounces

Instructions

For the Sponge

• Preheat your oven to 180ºc/160ºc fan and line a 2lb loaf tin with parchment paper!
• De-stone your dates, and chop up.
• Add them to a bowl, along with the bicarbonate of soda and the boiling water and leave to sit for 10 minutes.
• Once sat, blitz the mixture into a puree with a food processor, or blender until smooth!
• Add your unsalted butter to a bowl, along with the dark brown sugar and mix
• Add the eggs into the mixture one at a time, and beat in each time.
• Add in the flour, treacle, vanilla and pureed date mixture and beat again until smooth
• Pour the mixture into the tin, and bake the cake in the oven for 45-50 minutes, or until baked through!
• Once baked, leave the cake to cool for 10 minutes in the tin, and then leave to cool fully on a wire rack.

For the Sauce

• Whilst the cake is baking... make the sauce!
• Add all the ingredients into a pan, and heat on a low heat till the butter has melted, and everything is mixed in.
• Bring the mixture to the boil and boil for 1 minute.
• Once the mixture has boiled, remove from the heat and leave the sauce to cool fully. Stir occasionally so a skin isn't formed!

For the Buttercream

• Add your unsalted butter to a bowl and mix until smooth
• Add in the icing sugar and beat in until fully mixed in
• Add in the cooled sticky toffee sauce and mix again until delicious and perfect.

For the Decoration

• Using your favourite piping tip, pipe your sticky toffee buttercream onto the cake!
• Drizzle the cake with some more sticky toffee sauce, and then sprinkle with your favourite sprinkles!
• Enjoy!!

Notes

• It’s best to use a 2lb loaf tin for this recipe, and I use this one, as it's quite a chunky loaf cake. Some 2lb loaf tins are smaller than you think so make sure to only fill 2/3 of the tin with the mixture and make cupcakes with the spare mixture if you have any. 
• This cake will last for 3+ days at room temperature once made 
• You can freeze the cake for 3+ months 
• You can swap the dark brown soft sugar for light brown soft sugar
• You can swap the black treacle for golden syrup 
• I use this piping tip for the decoration 
• I use these sprinkles for the decoration 

ENJOY!

Find my other Recipes on my Recipes Page!

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J x

© Jane’s Patisserie. All images & content are copyright protected. Do not use my images without prior permission. If you want to republish this recipe, please re-write the recipe in your own words and credit me, or link back to this post for the recipe.