Treacle For Sticky Toffee Pudding | Ask Nigella.com (2024)

Our answer

Nigella's Sticky Toffee Pudding (from AT MY TABLE) is a dark and sticky sponge pudding. The intense flavour comes from the use of dark muscovado sugar and treacle. Treacle and molasses are thick syrups that are a by-product of sugar refining and are darker and more bitter in flavour than golden syrup. They are invert sugars, so attract moisture and help to keep baked goods moist. They are also useful for sugar-based sauces as they reduce the risk of the sauce crystallizing. Both this and the Easy Sticky Toffee Pudding use dark muscovado sugar.

If you can find a dark or light brown sugar with fairly fine crystals then you can use this as an alternative to dark muscovado sugar (dark brown sugar is better if you have the choice). The difference between brown sugars and muscovado sugars is that brown sugars are refined sugars with molasses added and muscovado sugars are unrefined and don't have molasses added, but generally they can be used interchangeably in baking. If you can't get either molasses or treacle then you could use golden syrup or dark corn syrup as an alternative. Otherwise we suggest using 20g of extra brown sugar in the sponge and an extra 10g in the sauce. When you make the sauce use a low heat and try to make sure that the sugar is fully dissolved before adding the cream and bringing the mixture to a boil.