Recipe For Sticky Toffee Pudding Trifle

Sticky Toffee Trifles. The dessert to destroy all diets and demolish all New Year’s resolutions. (Unless your resolution was to eat more dessert- then I’ve got you covered). If you think I’m kidding, just wait until you try it. Layers of sticky toffee pudding, butterscotch pudding, cinnamon whipped cream, and candied pecans. Oh, and let’s not forget the whisky. There’s some of that, too.

I guess I’ve been on a British dessert kick lately since Downton Abbey has started up again. Sticky toffee pudding and trifles are both iconic British desserts, and whisky is….well, Irish? Can’t forget about Branson, I suppose. BTW, have you taken this quiz yet? I’m Violet, the Dowager Countess, which I find rather ironic since I doubt she would approve of such a crazy dessert mash-up.

These trifles can be time consuming, but I promise they are worth the effort. It helps if you do some of the steps in advance and assemble the trifles when you need them. I made the butterscotch pudding 2 days in advance, the sticky toffee cake one day in advance, and the toffee sauce and whipped cream on the same day that I served the trifles. I confess, I didn’t candy my own pecans, since I found some good ones in the bulk aisle at the grocery store. I wouldn’t, however, take a shortcut on the butterscotch pudding. Homemade butterscotch pudding has become one of my favorite desserts ever, and I’m afraid to make it again for fear of not being able to stop spooning it into my mouth.

Fodmaps, Gluten & More

You can sub pretty much any alcohol for the whisky- bourbon, dark rum, etc. If you prefer to keep these G-rated, you can omit the alcohol altogether. Oh, and don’t forget to hide the leftovers in the back of the refrigerator so you don’t have to share with your significant other. That way, you can sneak downstairs at midnight and grab a spoonful Nigella style.Sticky Toffee Pudding is one of our absolute favourite desserts and while it’s origins are a little under debate (you can read more in our Sticky Toffee Pudding Microwave post) it’s a dish that’s readily available across Scotland and many visitors try it for the first time here.

The origins of Trifle are more decidedly English, with variations appearing in cookbooks from the 1500s. A trifle is classically made of layers including a sponge cake, fruit, custard, and cream. The sponge is often soaked in either jelly, fruit juice, or alcohol like sherry.

The humble trifle has evolved and you can now find lots of different takes on this traditional dessert, including those that take another dessert and transform it into trifle form. We’ve seen chocolate trifles and banoffee pie trifles, so we thought, why not a Sticky Toffee Pudding Trifle?

Abrams — Recipe: Sticky Toffee Trifle (from Butter & Scotch

We’ve kept the traditional layering effect of trifle, but changed up the ingredients a little. Starting with a layer of our sticky toffee pudding traybake, to replace the traditional sponge, then topped our creation with caramel custard and then whipped cream. We also used a rich caramel sauce to help hold it all together, yum!

Links to the items we’ve used go to our UK Amazon store, if you’re based in the US you can find them all here.

Instructions for making this can be found on the recipe card below or on our original recipe, we’ve added the ingredients here in case you need them for a shop!

Easy Sticky Toffee Pudding Recipe

It’s necessary to make each of the trifle’s components separately to allow time for cooling. Give yourself enough time for each and make sure you have measured each component’s ingredients separately to avoid any confusion.

1st Component – Caramel Custard: This needs 4-6 hours to cool in the fridge and set a little so we would suggest doing this the night before.

2nd Component – The Sticky Toffee Pudding Traybake: This has to be cold when you begin to build the trifle otherwise the custard will become runny and the cream will melt. Ideally make a few hours before assembly or the night before too.

Decadent Sticky Toffee Trifle Recipe

3rd Component – The Whipped Cream: This can be done just before serving to keep it as fresh as possible maintaining the volume added by the whipping process.

***Top Tip*** This recipe makes enough trifle for a large trifle dish and two layers of sponge and custard. If you don’t want to be eating trifle for the whole week reduce the custard ingredients by half. You can do the same for the traybake and bake in a smaller tin or, as we’ve done before, use half for the trifle and share the other half with friends.*

You can find our traybake instructions here or in the recipe card below. The traybake must be cooled so it will need to be left several hours after it’s finished baking.

Gelato Messina Launches Sticky Date & Toffee Christmas Coma Trifle

The only thing to change from our traybake recipe is when you’re adding the caramel sauce.For our Sticky Toffee Pudding traybake, you add half the sauce to the middle of the sponge and then the other half to the sauce to the top.

For your trifle just add half the mix to the centre of the bake and keep the rest of the sauce to one side to help you build your trifle.

Once your first two components are ready and cooled you just need to whip the cream, and then you’re ready to start building the trifle. Place the cream into a large mixing bowl and, with your electric beater, whip the cream until it forms soft peaks.You can then put this to one side.

Nigel Barden Makes A Mouthwatering Sharrow Bay Sticky Toffee Pudding

We layered our Sticky Toffee Pudding Triflelike this, the sponge gives a solid foundation and the cooled custard is solid enough to hold a second layer.

Alcohol – Often Trifle is made using sherry, or in the case of a Tipsy Laird, whisky. If you want to add that extra kick we would suggest using whisky, dark rum or spiced rum in your Sticky Toffee Pudding Trifle. Add 6-8 tbsp to your first layer of sponge once it is packed into the bottom of your trifle dish. This should be more than enough to give it a kick, less is more in this case!

Fruit – As we’ve said, this is a very sweet and decadent pudding so a little acidity in the mix helps break up the richness involved. We suggest adding a layer of raspberries on top of your final custard layer, or decorating the top of the cream with raspberries.

Sticky Date Pudding

When we were eating our trifle the next day we scattered blueberries on it and this worked really well, just enough of a burst of bitter to balance all the gooey sweetness.

Salt – It’s almost unusual these days to see caramel without it being salted! We’re big fans of all things salted caramel and can easily see how it would work in our trifle. We would suggest adding the salt to the caramel sauce in the sticky toffee traybake.

How much salt to use very much depends on the sea salt you’re using and your own taste. We suggest you start with 1-2 teaspoons of sea salt, stir then taste. This should be enough but if not add more slowly, if you overpower it you’ll have to start again!

How To Make Sticky Toffee Pudding

You can, of course, use regular custard, this will lighten the taste a little which may make it a little less rich. Personally, we’ve preferred the caramel taste as it works really well with all the sticky goodness.

No, bought custard works perfectly well especially if you’re not looking to make caramel custard. You could also buy a caramel sauce and stir this into your custard. The only thing we would suggest is that you pop the bought custard in the fridge once you’ve added any extra flavouring to help it set a little before adding it to your trifle.

It's necessary to make each of the trifle's components separately to allow time for cooling. Give yourself enough time for each and make sure you have measured each component's ingredients separately to avoid any confusion.

Gingerbread, Pumpkin, And Sticky Toffee Trifle

1st Component - Caramel Custard: This needs 4-6 hours to cool in the fridge and set a little so we would suggest doing this the night before.

2nd Component - The Sticky Toffee Pudding Traybake: This has to be cold when you begin to build the trifle otherwise the custard will become runny and the cream will melt. Ideally make a few hours before assembly or the night before too.

3rd Component - The Whipped Cream: This can be done just before serving to keep it as fresh as possible maintaining the volume added by the whipping process.

Sainsbury's Sticky Toffee Pudding Dessert, Taste The Difference 450g

The nutritional data in this recipe is provided by a third party and these values are automatically calculated and offered for guidance only. Their accuracy is not guaranteed.

We created Scottish Scran to not only learn more about Scottish cuisine but to bring it into our home and our kitchen and yours too.