Sticky Toffee Loaf Cake!
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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!
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)
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!
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J x
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Hi Jane, could I use this recipe as a traybake? either a 9″ x 9″ tin or a 12″ x 8″ tin?
I haven’t tried these measurements as a traybake yet (I have a traybake version coming soon!) but it’s worth a go! Try the 9″ square x
This sounds amazing! How much of the toffee sauce do you hold back for decorating? Or to put it another way, how much of toffee sauce do you add to the buttercream please?
How much you use in the buttercream is listed in the ingredients, and then you have leftover to drizzle/serve with!
I made this at the weekend, was delicious. Thank you for another fab recipe!
Hi, I only have a normal hand blender and don’t have a piping kit. Would this be ok still? Thanks
The hand blender is find for the dates – I often use a stick blender and it’s absolutely fine! And you don’t need a piping kit – I just wanted to make mine look all fancy haha!
Hi Jane, this looks sooo good! Going to bake this for my mum’s birthday. Where do you get your fudge pieces out of interest please?
They were just from the supermarket – most sell them in the baking section! X
I bought a bag of normal sized fudge and cut it up myself – it was much cheaper 🙂
Absolutely delicious. Made this for my Dads birthday as he is a massive Thorntons Toffee fan, so
with homemade toffee and then a sticky toffee cake he was more than suited 🙂
Looked and tasted amazing, a definite winner. Thank you.
Kim
hi jane …. i tried this recipe which by the way was awesome!!! but….. i measured everything right … preheated the oven and yet the cake sank in the middle badly….. i tried the recipe again the next day and meticulously weighed and measured but still happenned ….still tasted fab and filled the dip with more buttercream which was heavenly…. what did i do wrong please ?
Hey! So sinking can happen if you put too much raising agent in, but also if you open the oven door too early – a cake will nearly always sink if that happens! x
Hi, do you need to get the toffee sauce to a thick consistency before leaving to cook or does the sauce thicken up once it is cooled down? thanks x
Hey! The sauce isn’t ever like very thick, but it does thicken more once cooled down! It will thicken again once in the fridge too! x
hi jane, if I were to make half the toffee sauce (I want to make half the buttercream as well) do you think I’d still need to boil for a minute, or less? x
I’d still boil for about a minute or so, just to be sure!! x
Hi Jane,
Could this recipe be made into a birthday cake if I doubled the buttercream recipe to make more for the middle of 2 sponges? And thinking of covering the sides with the buttercream too?
Hey! Yes I would probably at least do another half of the buttercream, if not double! And this will split into two tins!
Hi Jane,
Thanks so much for the response!
I may add another half to all the cake ingredients to make it a 3 sponge cake just to make it a bit more wow for my friends birthday! That would be enough mixture for 3 sponges wouldn’t it?
Thanks again, can’t wait to make it!
Best wishes x
Hey! Yes 1.5x would be enough for three!! xx
Lovely recipe Jane! Made this for my dads quarantine birthdays as it’s his fave cake! How messy is Black Treacle though! (First time using this in baking), thanks once again x
Hahaha yes! One good tip is to put a spoon in boiling water for about 5 minutes before, and then the black treacle so slide straight off!
Scrummy yummy, absolutely loved this
Hello! Could this recipe work as two ‘sponges’ with the icing in the middle? I.e a birthday cake?
I made this today. It’s stunning.
Can the whole cake be frozen. As in like slices as it’s two much for all at one time fit me
Thank you
Yes it can! I freeze in slices, wrapping each slice well in clingfilm and then storing in a tub!
Hey
Is it possible to make this recipe but as cupcakes instead? Or would it need to be altered? Thanks 🙂
It can, it just makes a lot of cupcakes!