Sticky Toffee Loaf Cake!
*This post may contain affiliate links. Please see my disclosure for more details!*
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!
Find my other Recipes on my Recipes Page!
You can find me on:
Instagram
Facebook
Pinterest
Twitter
Youtube
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.
Hi Jane
This recipe leaves lots of left over sauce. Can I store it in the fridge? If so, for how long?
Thankyou
It’s perfect to be served with the cake (I never have any leftover because I love it) but it can be put in the fridge for 5 days, or frozen!
Thanks for sharing! Can I freeze this loaf?
Yes you can!
This looks so good! Do you use this loaf recipe for any other kinds?
Love this recipe and the cake is delicious! Quick question though, I have quite a bit of left over sauce, can the sauce be frozen or do you have any other suggestions of how to make use of it as I don’t want to waste it? I plan on making the rolo ice cream, would this sauce work in the ice cream?
Yess so you can freeze it, or use it in the ice cream! x
This is a win! Made this as per recipe but with 200g of pre-chopped dates. Absolutely delicious, and the best buttercream I’ve ever made!
Makes a lot of toffee sauce, but saving some to have with something else – bonus!
The cake was not that “sticky” but I really liked the texture! Wonder if you could poke holes in it and drizzle in some of the sauce – might try that next time!
If we were to use already chopped/destoned dates – would it still need to be 200g?
Thank you x
Yes I would – the stones really don’t weigh too much anyway so 200g is fine! x
Thank you! I made this cake and while I was decorating It (when the cake cooled) it had dipped in the middle, But only very slightly, would it still be safe to eat? X
Yes it will be fine! x
Hi Jane! For the sauce, would I be able to substitute the treacle for golden syrup?
I absolutely LOVE your recipes!! They’re amazing!!
Thanks x
Yes you can indeed!! And thank you! x
Hi Jane ,
Is it ok to use Stork instead of unsalted butter for the sponge ?
For the sponge, yes!!
Hi Jane,
I was wondering if you can use the sponge to make the classic sticky toffee recipe with just the sauce? Sorry if this is a silly question!
When I make stick toffee pudding it’s similar, but still different (and I will be posting one soon) – but for now you can do! x
This is amazing, went down a storm😀😀😀
A great recipe, used chopped dates rather than buying Medjool dates and de-stoning/chopping. Used 190g and worked well.
This looks so yummy! I’ve got my eye on a silicon mini loaf tin to make individual loaves. Mainly because they’re so cute, but also easier to portion out for colleagues at work 😊
If I were to make this in a mini loaf tin (with loaves of about 9cm x 4.5cm), how long do you think they might take to cook? I’ve never made mini loaves before. 20 minutes maybe? Thank you 😊
I’m not sure on the sizing so I can’t be sure of the timing – but a batch of cupcakes would take about 20 minutes for example x
Just wondering if you used the mini loaf tin as wanting to do this too and wondering how long they needed in the oven and how many they made
Hiya, I made this a few weeks back for fathers day and it was a big hit, everyone loved it. Its my grandads birthday tomorrow so I thought I’d make it again but it turned out a complete mess and I dont know why, I used the exact same ingredients as last time but it sunk in the middle and was not cooked at all, I put it back in for 10 mins covered with foil but still no luck. Have you any idea what I may have done wrong this time?! X
Cakes sinking and taking longer to bake can be a few things no matter if it’s worked before – over mixing, oven temp being slightly off, but mostly it’s opening the oven too soon – that’s a killer for cakes! x
Hi Jane
This sticky toffee loaf recipe is excellent, made it on Monday for my husband’s birthday and was a big hit. I would like to make it again but use 1 lb loaf tin, can you just half all the ingredients (would you use 2 eggs instead of 3?) and how long would you bake it for?
Hey! Yes I would half it, and use two medium eggs – baking time I’m not 100% sure – check from about half way through the oven door if you can, but it will be quite a bit less!
Hi Jane , Made many of your cakes and they are all delicious!
With this one I’m leaving out the dates (fussy son )
Am I right I’m thinking I’d leave the hot water and bicarbonate of soda out aswell ?
Thanks Mel
As mentioned in the post the dates are integral to the bake so can’t just be left out – it’s best to find a recipe that is already date free. They are pureed, so they are unnoticeable texture wise, but can’t just be left out of the cake x