Best Sticky Toffee Pudding Bake Off

Looking for the best sticky toffee pudding recipe? I tested 9 different recipes in search of the gooiest, most decadent recipe!

I must admit that I’ve only ever had sticky toffee pudding in the U.S. (sadly, not in its British homeland). But this has been a highly requested bake off over the years, and so in preparation, I researched (ate) a lot of sticky toffee pudding around NYC in hopes of finding an authentic version, at least familiarizing myself with multiple variations. As someone whose top dessert picks are generally not focused on dates or molasses-y flavor profiles, I was surprised by how much I LOVED this dessert!

For those unfamiliar, sticky toffee pudding is a dessert featuring a date-filled sponge cake and topped with a toffee sauce typically made with butter, cream and a dark sugar like brown or muscovado sugar. Traditionally, the sponge cake is steamed, but most modern versions bake the sponge for ease. It’s often served with ice cream or custard (though for the bake off, we went minimalist with no accompaniments).

I went the modern (and in some cases, probably Americanized) route for all 9 sticky toffee pudding recipes that I tested in this bake off–i.e. they were all baked rather than steamed. But there were lots of other factors that we got to compare within recipes, so let’s get into it!

Methodology

• All 9 sticky toffee pudding cakes were baked in 9×13 pans the day before the tasting, wrapped and chilled overnight. (I chose to use 9×13 pans for ease of serving a crowd.)
• All sauces were made the same day the puddings were tasted.
• Puddings were rewarmed in the oven before serving.
• 33 total tasters rated samples of all 9 puddings.
• Each taster rated each pudding on a scale from 0-10 for flavor, texture and overall as a whole (see Results section below for the overall ratings).
• Ingredients were measured by weight according to King Arthur (unless the recipe specified weights).

Ingredients

• Gold Medal bleached all-purpose flour
• King Arthur unbleached cake flour
• Kirkland unsalted butter
• Medjool dates
• Wholesome Organics molasses
• Lyle’s Golden Syrup
• Lyle’s Black Treacle
• Burlap and Barrel spices
• Nielsen-Massey vanilla extract
• Diamond Crystal kosher salt

Results

When you take a warm, soft cake and cover it in a buttery toffee sauce, it’s hard not to like it–which likely explains the very tight spread of scores in the top 5 recipes:

Salt Butter Smoke was the crowd favorite with an average overall rating of 7.4, proving that brown butter can do no wrong. I was surprised to see Nigella Lawson’s iconic sticky toffee pudding recipe near the bottom of the ratings. I think these low ratings were a function of the sponge’s chunky date texture and a preference for a less dark toffee sauce.

There was also significant baker’s error that occurred with Smitten Kitchen, so although I am including the scores in the table for transparency, this recipe should be taken out of the running to be fair. As for Well Made by Kiley–this was actually one of my favorite recipes, but you can read more in the analysis section on why some tasters didn’t agree.

For a summary of how I’d categorize the recipes and my high level recommendations, see the Recommendations section at the bottom of the post. As always, I think these recipes were all delicious in their own right and I think selecting the “best” recipe depends on your personal preferences!

Factors

Despite what I said above (how can you not like a cake smothered in a sea of buttery toffee), it can be hard to find the right balance of flavors. We want a sauce that isn’t just sweet, but has enough rich complexity to complement the sponge without being cloying. Here are a few insights I learned from testing all 9 sticky toffee pudding recipes!

Excessive date flavor can be polarizing

One of my most interesting takeaways is that the highest proportion of dates in the sponge did not translate to the strongest date flavor. Most tasters commented that Well Made by Kiley (our only eggless recipe) was extremely date forward even though it had one of the lowest ratios of dates. This theory needs some testing, but I suspect that an eggless sponge allows the flavor of the dates to shine more.

Most tasters preferred a slightly more subtle date flavor. Generally, most sponges made with egg and pureed dates met this criteria. The only recipes that received feedback of a sometimes excessively date-forward flavor were Well Made by Kiley and Nigella (thanks to the chunks of dates in the cake).

A smoother date texture is generally preferable

This leads us into the technique of incorporating the dates: the grand majority of recipes used pureed dates. The only exceptions: Nigella’s cake with fork-mashed dates and chef Daniel Sia’s cake with dates boiled into a paste. Most tasters preferred the smoother texture of cakes made with the puree, though a few enjoyed the chunks of dates. I tend to feel that the chunks disrupt the texture and sometimes overpower the bite with date flavor, but this is personal preference!

My preferred method to puree the dates after testing all 9 recipes: cover the pitted dates with boiling water and baking soda to help break them down. Let sit for at least 10 minutes, then puree. No need to fuss with chopping or cooking them on the stovetop!

Added dairy can be nice, but it’s not necessary

Unlike American butter cakes which are greatly enhanced with a high-fat, acidic dairy addition like sour cream, yogurt or buttercream, sticky toffee sponges don’t seem to need this. Five out of the 9 recipes were made just with butter and water in the sponge (while the 4 remaining recipes used cream, milk, sour cream and yogurt respectively). Yes, the top-rated recipe (Salt Butter Smoke) uses sour cream, but I don’t think this was the key to the recipes’ success.

The added dairy did generally make for a plusher cake texture across the board, but that’s just not as important in a sticky toffee pudding. Because the sauce poured over the top adds additional moisture and richness, it’s almost better (and structurally more sound) to have a slightly drier cake that’s ready to soak up the moisture, similar to a tres leches cake. While I loved the soft texture of Salt Butter Smoke, I felt like the texture of The Kitchn, Serious Eats and Food52 were more true to an authentic sticky toffee pudding.

Spices are untraditional (but can be welcome)

To be clear, sticky toffee pudding is NOT a spice cake. Traditionally, it doesn’t contain spices as far as I can tell. But many tasters, including myself, tended to like a little spice added to the sponge. The Kitchn and Salt Butter Smoke were the two recipes that did include a few warming spices and were both well-received by the tasters.

Based on our very small sample size of spiced sticky toffee puddings, I think a little of cinnamon and ginger (Salt Butter Smoke) are great enhancements. Once you cross over into adding nutmeg and cloves, there were several comments that The Kitchn tasted more like gingerbread. (Not a bad thing, just an observation to note!)

Toffee versus caramel sauce

One interesting trend in the chart above is the top 5 recipes all use dark brown sugar or muscovado sugar in the sauce. Of the remaining recipes, 3 out of 4 recipes use light brown sugar.

While every sauce was tasty in its own right, some felt like more of a caramel sauce rather than a toffee sauce. To me, the sauces that leaned more caramel were those that used light brown sugar. Sauces with golden syrup, treacle, molasses, dark muscovado sugar or dark brown sugar had slightly darker, bitter or just more complex notes that offset the sweetness and added depth.

My takeaway: look for a sauce that uses a base of dark brown sugar and/or adds a bit of molasses or treacle for more depth of flavor.

A brief simmer yields a sufficiently thick texture

To me, an ideal sticky toffee sauce is one that’s easily pourable but thick enough to pool around the sponge.

The recipe with the runniest sauce (Daniel Sia) had confusing instructions around how to accomplish caramelizing the sugar before adding additional cream. Meanwhile, the recipe that caused me the most heartache and baker’s error (Smitten Kitchen) calls for whisking the sauce for 10 minutes until thickened.

Most other sauces simply call for whisking the ingredients together and simmering for a minute or two before setting aside to cool and thicken further. I found this generally yielded a well-thickened and glossy sauce–I don’t see a need for a fancier technique other than this.

Analysis of the Best Sticky Toffee Pudding Recipes

Smitten Kitchen: probably a delicious cake if you don’t mess it up!

Let’s discuss my baker’s error right off the bat. I believe this is the only recipe that called for stirring the flour into the wet ingredients (butter, eggs) prior to the date puree (which adds a significant amount of moisture). When I stirred in the flour all at once, the mixture was quite lumpy, a bit dry, and unfortunately didn’t smooth out once I added the date puree (hence the white lumps you see in the cake). This is probably more a sloppy job of mixing on my part than the recipe’s issue since I didn’t see any other comments mentioning this issue. But in case you want to safeguard against this if you try this recipe, I’d try mixing the date puree in first, then slowly whisking in the flour.

This recipe also called for the longest cook time for the sauce (10 minutes). My mistake was abandoning whisking the sauce here and there to check on other cake components, which led to a slightly candied, grainy (but still delicious) caramel sauce that barely soaked into the cake. If you whisk it constantly, the graininess shouldn’t be an issue! Though I think you could probably accomplish a thickened sauce in less time.

And for the record–as soon as I realized I had messed up the sponge, I did re-bake it immediately. But I somehow messed up the recipe a second time and ended up with a dense, overly moist cake that I thought was an even worse option to present to the tasters.

But even with all the issues thanks to my own baking errors, tasters still enjoyed this cake! Both the toffee and the cake had a milder flavor that struck me more as a caramel cake rather than the darker notes of a traditional sticky toffee pudding. Despite my errors, I encourage you to try this recipe if you prefer a lighter caramel profile to your sticky toffee pudding! (Though personally if I were to make this again, I would use Deb’s note to try dark brown sugar in the toffee sauce.)

Well Made by Kiley: A soft and squishy, finely-crumbed cake with a caramel-forward sauce

Kiley has a whole collection of sticky toffee pudding recipes on her site, and I was intrigued to try her classic recipe as it’s the only eggless recipe I came across (with lots of suggested modifications to make it vegan/dairy-free). No egg generally means less structure and I suspected this would lead to an especially tender cake, which I was excited to try. This was the only recipe that called for yogurt along with a mix of granulated and dark brown sugar. This had the second lowest and slowest bake time at 320 F for 40-45 minutes.

Sure enough, this cake had a significantly softer and squishier texture than other cakes. I think was both due to the lack of egg and the low and slow bake time, which can help a cake retain moisture rather than drying out at high temperatures. In this case, the cake was incredibly moist and squishy on its own, and I could actually see it making a great snacking cake. But once it was doused in the toffee sauce, people found the texture a bit too mushy. I do agree that the texture was structurally a bit too soft, but if you reframe the dessert as a kind of dense sticky toffee soufflé, I think you’d be very happy with it. Personally, I could coming back to this one for more bites.

Flavor-wise, the cake was very date-forward despite having a relatively low date content in the sponge. It somehow racked up the highest number of comments noting the strong date flavor, which makes me suspect that the lack of egg really lets the date flavor shine. The flavor of the toffee leaned more on the side of a lighter, less complex caramel. Perhaps less traditional, but still delicious. Overall, a good pick if you want a very date-forward and super soft cake.

Note: I used all the full dairy suggestions here—heavy cream instead of coconut, butter instead of non-dairy, etc.

Taster comments:

• This definitely tasted the least like the others. More date forward? It was very moist but that didn’t bother me because it still felt light. I would definitely buy this one. It’s tied with [The Kitchn] for 2nd place.
• VERY datey. This should be the winner if you love dates.
• Tastes very date forward. Really like the texture, but it’s too sweet. Has the most unique flavor I think.
• Mushy but I don’t hate that! There’s something satisfying about the way it’s broken down. Helped by the fact that it isn’t sickly sweet. Really drops in yumminess as it cools, like a Levain cookie
• This one felt more like a pancake to me. It didn’t have the dense chew I wanted
• Taste like quince paste or fig, very mushy almost like banana bread
• Tastes like fruit cake, a little too date-y
• Incredibly mushy, almost like baby food but in a cube. Honestly amazed at how it’s holding together, I would not have guessed it would be that mushy.

Nigella Lawson: A date-strewn, open-crumbed cake with a molasses-forward sauce

In researching this recipe, I found that the Nigella’s version on her site differs from this Food52 version, mainly in the use of black treacle vs. molasses and muscovado sugar vs. dark brown sugar. I used Nigella’s version, but I do think that the Food52 version would hit very similar notes if you don’t want to bother getting the treacle and muscovado sugar. (To me, treacle tastes very much like molasses.)

Nigella’s recipe is the only recipe I tested that called for simply squishing the soaked dates with a fork rather than pureeing them into the cake, which uses a base of creamed butter and dark muscovado sugar. Visually, the toffee sauce looked significantly darker than the rest with a base of that same muscovado sugar and a touch of black treacle.

Accordingly, this was by far the cake with the darkest, smokiest notes. Thanks to the mashed date technique, there were irregular chunks of dates strewn throughout the cake. Personally, I didn’t dislike the bites of sugary dates, but it wasn’t my preferred texture in tandem with the slightly coarser cake texture. The bits of date also sort of overrode the flavor of the cake itself to me (one taster likened this to rye bread which is perhaps not entirely inaccurate). I liked the darker flavor of the toffee sauce, but it wasn’t a cake I found myself returning to as my American palate tended towards the lighter toffee sauces.

Overall, I’d be curious to try this cake again with pureed dates. But this is obviously a great traditional sticky toffee pudding recipe that you should try if you love a molasses-y flavor profile!

Taster comments:

• Second favorite. Loved the chunks of dates thru the cake
• I liked that I got full dates! But texture too mushy (maybe because of the dates)
• The chunks of date were a surprise! One I liked in the lineup, but acknowledging that maybe I wouldn’t as much outside the context of tasting 9. Very sweet, very caramel-y sauce. Need flakey salt on this one!
• This one actually tastes better after it cooled which surprised me. Nice bouncy texture, warm toffee flavor that was a bit more subtle than others
• Tastes like fruit cake with a rich dark caramel soaked through
• It has a bit of a bitter aftertaste almost like cognac. A little crumbly in texture.
• Not sweet enough, tastes like rye bread and too date-y

Moribyan: A soft, slightly bland cake with a vanilla-forward caramel sauce

Moribyan’s recipe was the only one that called for softening the dates in hot milk instead of boiling water. Actually, this recipe also gives the option to mash the dates (like Nigella) but since she gave the option of pureeing the dates, I pureed them for consistency with the other recipes. Moribyan was one of four recipes that used a liquid dairy in the cake. I was mainly curious to see how a lower fat option like milk would fare in the cake compared to others made with water vs. sour cream vs. heavy cream.

This baked up into a tall, plush cake that reminded me of Well Made by Kiley in that it looked and felt like it could be a good standalone cake without the toffee sauce. And happily, it remained structurally sound even after soaking in the cream-heavy, vanilla-forward brown sugar toffee. Although I like a slightly more sturdy cake for a sticky toffee pudding, this was close to my ideal cake texture with its plush, soft bite.

However, it was lacking a bit of flavor depth that I think of as crucial to a sticky toffee pudding–it again almost felt like a delicious caramel-sauced cake. Tasters generally agreed the texture was nice and soft, but the flavor was lacking the depth and complexity that I think a sticky toffee pudding needs. Still a great option if you want a soft, plush cake that can stand up to a warm caramel sauce!

Taster comments:

• I think the texture was nice and light but didn’t have a lot of flavor.
• A bit moister and mushier than I prefer, but the flavor is great – caramelly, a bit salty, almost a little milky.
• Good texture, very vanilla butter flavored. Fine but a bit too mellow and unexciting somehow?
• Very strong date flavor, overly sweet, good soft texture
• Fine. Nice balance but doesn’t have a molasses depth. It leans a little too soft in crumb texture.
• I mentioned before that the more you tread towards the moist end of the spectrum, the more I find cakes lose their structural integrity. This is it, this is that cake. I was bummed too because visually, this one looked the most appetizing — big beautiful fluffy chunks. But the actual mouthfeel melts too easily into kind of a mush, and with the sauce on top, it just becomes kind of overwhelming.

Food52: A molasses-y spiced cake with a structured texture and buttery sauce

I have to admit that I immediately added this recipe to my shortlist after seeing golden syrup in both the sponge and toffee. Golden syrup proved to be a magical ingredient in the pecan pie bake off and I was excited to see it come through in a sticky toffee pudding. This is otherwise a fairly straightforward recipe with butter, dark brown sugar and no added dairy.

One note for this recipe: it calls for cooling the pureed date mixture completely before adding it to the batter. Based on the other recipes I tried, I don’t think the cooling time necessary–adding warm date puree is fine! But I do like that it makes a restrained amount of toffee sauce vs. recipes that call for four times too much sauce (ahem, Serious Eats).

Despite not having any molasses in the sponge, this took on a dark hue from the dark brown sugar and a similarly caramelized molasses-y flavor in the cake. Although the crumb of the cake looked quite open and not especially plush, this had a surprisingly soft texture.

Though I had been building a hypothesis that molasses/treacle is key to a traditional sticky toffee pudding flavor profile, this recipe disproved my theory. I feel like the combination of dark brown sugar and golden syrup work overtime in both the sponge and toffee for a flavor complexity that I loved. It hits all the right notes of caramel while adding an underlying complexity–the nuttier richness of toffee! Another taster and I thought this recipe was the closest to Dame’s sticky toffee pudding (our favorite in NYC so far!). This is one recipe I’m eager to try making again–don’t try to sub the golden syrup because I think it’s key here!

Taster comments:

• The most Restaurantier-quality of the bunch. This was my favorite. The sauce was very rich and unctuous, almost caramely. This is the ideal sticky toffee pudding I’d like to be served at a restaurant!
• Richer caramel than [The Kitchn], feels darker and firmer. More complex flavor.
• Liked this one a lot. The toffee flavor really comes through strongly, but not super sweet. Texture is not too dense, bit lighter than others.
• So fluffy!!! The bite was airy and light. If the sauce was a little thicker it would be perfect.
• A bit more rustic, molasses forward. Reminds me of something my grandma would make, like honey cake. A little more well-done but still plush.
• After [The Kitchn], it almost feels like this one is low on flavor because it’s comparatively less spiced. This one has less cohesion to the crumb, but it’s really not in a bad way, maybe because sticky toffee pudding is inherently moist from the sauce and the dates and so on.
• The sauce has a really slightly floral-fruity quality that I enjoyed, but the delicateness of it really doesn’t suit the intensity of sticky toffee pudding because it’s such a bold dish. Not really the place for a more subtle flavor to shine.
• More (but not overly) dense and has a better flavor but also a little dry without sauce

Daniel Sia: A soft and tender cake with a rich, slightly runny sauce

This is a recipe I never would have found had a reader not submitted it on Instagram. I was a bit skeptical but intrigued by chef Daniel’s inclusion of cake flour and heavy cream in the sponge. Rather than the typical date puree in the sponge, the dates are boiled with water until the mixture turns into a paste.

To be honest, I was a bit confused by the sauce instructions. You cook the sugar, treacle and half the heavy cream until the sugar is “caramelized” before adding the rest of the cream, butter and vanilla off the heat. It’s very possible my sugar wasn’t sufficiently caramelized (it was…basically melted), which led to a fairly runny sauce.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by the texture of the cake, which was quite soft and tender (which does make sense given the richness of the cream and the low-protein cake flour). I didn’t find the date paste to be nearly as intrusive as the mashed dates in Nigella’s cake–they blend into the cake far more seamlessly.

Personally, I found the sauce to be quite sweet and too runny for my ideal texture, though the overall effect was still delicious. The flavor of the cake was a bit unmemorable to me, but the sauce really carried this with its darker, slightly smokier notes. The cake baked up relatively thin in a 9×13 pan and I’d be especially curious to try this recipe baked in individual ramekins as the recipe specifies (I think having a higher crust-to-interior ratio would make this cake more interesting). I think this recipe has a lot of promise, but the execution is a bit tough given the way the recipe is written.

Taster comments:

• This is the first one since [The Kitchn] that feels like it has its own flavor that stands out. It’s robust, like a sweet earthiness. It’s not spiced like [The Kitchn] is, but it’s got its own character that tastes deeply caramelized — not just in a sugary way, but somehow more complex.
• Lovely texture and flavor, just the right amount of sweet
• Another one with date chunks! This one I like a lot better. There’s a banana bready element to this one, probably an effect of the big dates. Sauce doesn’t have much taste. Love the texture of this one.
• More malted flavor was nice but texture a bit too soft/mushy
• It’s very sweet, maybe too sweet. It’s also very mushy. The date flavor is strong.
• Flavor and texture on the inside were solid but edges too dry and rough

The Kitchn: A porous, spiced cake with a sweet and glossy sauce

If you’re searching for sticky toffee pudding (at least in the U.S.), this is one of the top results that will emerge. The recipe is fairly standard, but I was interested to try this one with its added spices (cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves). The author notes that these spices are designed to add a richer flavor in place of the traditional black treacle that’s harder to find in the U.S. The sauce is a 2:1 ratio of cream to butter with dark brown sugar, vanilla and a pinch of salt.

And did the spices successfully mimic the black treacle? Honestly, I would say no–to accurately mimic the flavor profile of black treacle, you can just use molasses. But the warming spices enhanced the cake in a distinct way that most tasters loved–a few likened the flavor to gingerbread.

The coarser texture of this sponge reminded me of a good tres leches cake which requires a coarse, fatless sponge to efficiently soak up the liquid. Porous and flavorful on its own, this cake was perfect for drinking up the glossy sauce that was quite sweet but struck a nice middling chord on the spectrum from light caramel to dark treacle.

Apparently, adding spices is not at all traditional for sticky toffee pudding, so I wouldn’t recommend this one for the purists. But this was delicious and rated highly for a reason! This was another top recipe for me.

Taster comments:

• Love the crumb, it holds up really well to the sauce. The flavor is predominantly gingerbread, which is very jolly. The sauce is a bit thin, but soaks really nicely into the cake without disintegrating it. Would serve this on Xmas!
• Spongy but holds together. Strong molasses/toffee flavor, not a lot of salt. Sauce sinks right in. Does taste of warming spices more strongly than others.
• I think the texture was perfect, not overly sweet, light sauce. It tasted like gingerbread.
• This is tied with [Well Made by Kiley] for 2nd place. Its giving gingerbread vibes, so it’s not traditional but still really good.
• Gingery, the spicing is nice but this is NOT STP. More like a sticky spice cake?
• This one seemed a bit middle of the road to me, neither stand out in flavor or texture. Spices really came through well, so I can see why this one will be popular but it fell short to me.
• After the first pass, this one feels the most spice-forward to me. The toffee is SUPER sweet, and I’m shocked to say this because I have such a sweet tooth, but it’s way too sweet. If not for how sweet the toffee is, I’d probably have ranked it higher on flavor. The texture is solid though — plush and moist but with structural integrity (I find the closer you move towards the moist end of the scale, the greater the chance of crumb collapse).

Serious Eats: a coarser-crumbed cake with a rich, butter-forward sauce

Serious Eats was the only recipe that called for all granulated sugar in the cake itself, which immediately led me to wonder if this would lack the necessary flavor complexity from molasses or brown sugar. At first glance, it also looks like it would have a high egg ratio (with 5 whole eggs), but this actually balances out to a fairly standard egg ratio since this is just a massive cake. In fact, it’s most notable for having one of the lowest fat ratios (even with 10 tbsp of butter), though it also definitely stood out for an entire pound of butter in the sauce (!!!). This was the only sauce that had a 2:1 butter to cream ratio.

Although I didn’t have high hopes for this cake due to its lack of molasses or brown sugar in the cake, it actually baked up into a deeply hued cake with decent molasses notes from the pureed dates. I do think the bottom got slightly overbaked–I’d add a baking sheet underneath next time to guard against this. This led to some taster observations around the textural variation from the top/middle/bottom of the cake–most appreciated a bit of contrast.

Whereas Well Made by Kiley got baked low and slow and resulted in a plush, moist cake, I feel like Serious Eats is almost the opposite. Baking the enormous cake for an hour in order to reach doneness made me wonder if I had overdone/dried out the tops and sides of the cake (but this actually served this recipe well in that it soaked up a lot of the sauce and remained robust.) I’d also be curious to try a scaled down version of this recipe in ramekins to see what the texture is like on a smaller scale.

I also thought I wouldn’t prefer the butter-heavy sauce compared to the 2:1 or 1:1 cream to butter sauces but–surprise, surprise–lots of butter actually tastes amazing. This was also a relatively thin sauce, but I loved the darkness from the dark brown sugar and hint of vanilla and salt. This sauce was quite sweet, but it’s surprisingly balanced and the perfect foil to the puffed, not overly sweet cake. While the flavor of the cake was somewhat subtle, the intensely caramel-y sauce transforms this into an appealing option.

Note: I halved the sauce for the cake and still ended up with tons of extra. I think you could make 1/3 of the sauce for the entire cake and still have plenty (unless you really love sauce).

Taster comments:

• This has the most textural variety: top, middle and bottom all felt distinct. Good toffee flavor and satisfying.
• This was really good – intense caramel flavor, not too sweet, and great texture. The bottom and edges are almost crunchy or caramelized, and the insides are moist, which was great textural contrast. Only downside is that there was an oily residue afterwards.
• Solid! Love the crust. Sweetness is just right. And it tastes very caramel-y
• It’s fine but too white sugary sweet? There’s very little depth of flavor. Wait. The denser parts kinda taste like lions sticky toffee sponge (from the UK)
• The texture was nice and fluffy. Stronger date flavor, could be lighter
• Nothing about this one stood out to me. It was super dense, the sauce was thin, and the flavor seemed just alright.

Salt Butter Smoke: an incredibly tasty, spongy cake with a perfectly balanced toffee

It never seems fair to add in a brown butter contender to a pool of regular recipes, but in the name of research, I had to try this recipe! Ben uses brown butter in both the sponge and the toffee sauce. The sponge reads like a hit list of promising ingredients: black treacle, dark brown sugar, sour cream and since we’re not going the traditional route with brown butter, why not add cinnamon and ginger? The brown butter sauce also uses dark brown sugar and golden syrup, so I suspected this would be a top contender.

I was almost disappointed this cake was voted the crowd favorite because the fondness for brown butter is so predictable! But this is genuinely a delicious cake. To me, there were three cakes that fell into the squishy-soft category. In order of most to least squishy, I’d say: Well Made by Kiley, Salt Butter Smoke, Moribyan. So I did love the softness of the cake, but I thought it was slightly less structurally sound than Moribyan once soaked with the sauce. This had the lowest and slowest bake time of an hour at 300 F, which probably contributed to its moist and plush texture.

Some tasters found the sauce a little too sweet and I wished for a slightly darker flavor profile. The speckled brown butter sauce is creamy, rich, perfectly thickened and wholly untraditional–but also so, so delicious. It’s the perfect topping for the lightly spiced cake where the notes of cinnamon and ginger come through in a subtle but pleasing way. Again, this is not the recipe for purists–but it is an undeniably crowd-pleasing recipe!

Taster comments:

• Excellent flavor – more date and ginger taste. More moist than the others
• This is my favorite! I love the spice profile, not too forward but you can taste it.
• The sauce makes it better. The sponge is quite plain but light. Not too sweet which is nicely improved by the sauce
• Perfect texture. Love the butter flavor, but it is a bit too sweet.
• I think I just prefer spiced cakes in general for this kind of flavor profile because this one also tastes spiced. But unlike [The Kitchn], the structure isn’t as sturdy.
• I really enjoyed the spices in the cake but I think they overpowered the other flavors. Texture was smooth and pleasant
• It was a little too sweet. I also wish it had more texture since it was a little mushy.

Recommendations

• Crowd favorite: Salt Butter Smoke
• Erika’s picks: Salt Butter Smoke (untraditional pick), Food52 (more traditional pick), The Kitchn
• Most traditional: Nigella Lawson
• If you like a softer cake: Moribyan, Salt Butter Smoke, Well Made by Kiley
• For a lighter caramel flavor profile: Smitten Kitchen, Moribyan, Well Made by Kiley
• For a darker flavor profile: Nigella Lawson, Food52, The Kitchn, Serious Eats
• For a spiced cake: The Kitchn, Salt Butter Smoke
• Strongest date flavor: Well Made by Kiley