Sticky toffee pudding Washington post

[wargarden]

Sticky toffee pudding Washington post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/vor ... e-at-home/?

how close to authentic is this recipe or is it faux version.

[earthmaiden]

I thought that STP was developed by a family business in Cartmel in the Lake District and that the authentic recipe was a secret. If so, no-one knows the authentic recipe except for those people.

[Suelle]

I can't get access to the page, so can't tell you.

[Herbidacious]

I was discussing this with the person I sit next to at work and she got really quite cross about it. She says her grandmother made this (or was it something like this. I wasn't going to delve at this point) long before the Cartmel one.

[Pepper Pig]

Eartmaiden is right. Secret recipe. Also it's Traditionally baked as a whole pudding not poncey indivdual ones.

[earthmaiden]

To be fair, even the Cartmel people mention there was a version before theirs. There probably was something similar - but this is what put it on the map. https://www.lancashirelife.co.uk/food-d ... -1-4262093

Am I the only one who thinks it's a bit overrated?

[Herbidacious]

They put it on the map, then it went all over it?! As in, you can order one in almost any gastro-esque pub.

I really like it when it's done well (or not over done, more to the point.) It's a very guilty pleasure though (as usually had at lunch time.) I suppose in concept, it's not a million miles away from syrup sponge? But much more interesting/depth of flavour. I am still in two minds about serving it with ice cream. Not an ice cream fan, but it can help stop one losing the top layer of roof of the mouth skin..

[patpoyntz]

I rather like this recipe, which has black treacle in it. Don’t know how authentic it is. It definitely isn’t too sweet and sickly, even for me, who doesn’t care for puddings

https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/stic ... ding_05454

[Suelle]

[patpoyntz]

[Seatallan]

[Amber]

I use a John Tovey recipe, which I first came across in a Lakeland Plastics catalogue. Definitely a family favourite here.

[wargarden]

Sticky toffee pudding
Origins
Francis Coulson and Robert Lee developed and served sticky toffee pudding at his Sharrow Bay Country House Hotel in the Lake District, north west England, in the 1970s.[5][6] Food critic Simon Hopkinson claimed that Coulson told him he got the recipe from a Patricia Martin of Claughton in Lancashire.[7] Martin had published the recipe in a compilation that later became The Good Food Guide Dinner Party Book, and first served the dish at her country hotel. Coulson's recipe only differs from Martin's in the sauce. Her son later told Hopkinson that she had originally got the recipe from two Canadian air force officers who had lodged at her hotel during the Second World War.[7] According to Hopkinson, this Canadian origin makes sense, as the pudding uses a batter more akin to that of an American muffin, rather than an English sponge.[7]

[Seatallan]

The Canadian theory is interesting though as I say, native Cumbrian friends maintain that sticky toffee pudding variants had been cooked in their families for generations. Probably one of those things that was simultaneously invented numerous times.

[wargarden]

to prove the canada theory you need access to pre WW2 recipe sources and cooking media from that time.
given there is no large scale easy accessible newspaper archive in Canada it would tough job.
In Usa you can follow recipe and food treads of past by looking though newspaper archives.
cook books were not primary mean recipe transmission till the 1960-1970s.
Recipe transmission pre 1960 was mostly person to person and through newspapers.

[Seatallan]

The Sharrow Bay Hotel v Cartmel rivalry is notorious locally. I dread to think what would happen if I was to suggest STP was invented in Canada!

[wargarden]

there is evidence of caramel and toffee sauces poured over
cakes and cupcakes in Canada pre WW2. so the theory of
Canadian origin is possible. given a quick search I did
on Canadian newspapers on newspapers.com

[earthmaiden]

It does sound possible. However, I think the UK was traditionally the place for sticky fruit puddings so I wonder if there was a happy amalgamation?

[suffolk]

Given the history of migration from the north of the UK to Canada it may be that the origin of the pudding went from the UK and back again, maybe a few times.