Sticky Toffee Sauce Overflowing

Asked by Sublimon. Answered on 2nd April 2016

Full question

Followed the recipe for the Easy Sticky Toffee Pudding step by step and the sauce ended up on the bottom of the cooker, the outside burnt and the middle did not cook. Where did I go wrong?

Our answer

Nigella's Easy Sticky Toffee Pudding (from NIGELLA BITES) is a self-saucing pudding. This means that the sauce is mixed together and poured over the cake batter before the pudding is put in the oven and during baking the sponge rises up to leave the hot toffee sauce on the bottom.

From the description it sounds as if the oven was too hot as this would cause the sauce to bubble over and also burn the outside of the sponge whilst the centre remains undercooked. The oven temperature should be 190c/350F, however this is for a conventional gas or electric oven and if you have a fan or convection oven then you would need to adjust the temperature. The user guide or handbook for your oven should give instructions on how to adjust the temperature. Ovens do vary but often you need to set a fan oven at 20c/50F below a conventional oven. Also the pudding needs a dish of 1.5 litres (6 cups) capacity. However it does need to have some depth to it and we would suggest looking for a dish that is is at least 4cm (1 1/2 inches) deep.