Sticky Toffee Pudding

Lake District, England — attributed to Francis Coulson and Brian Sack at Sharrow Bay Hotel, Ullswater, 1970s; also claimed by the Udny Arms Hotel in Scotland; the modern version was popularised by chef Nigel Haworth

Britain's most beloved modern dessert — a dense, moist sponge cake made with dates and brown sugar, served warm in pools of hot toffee sauce and usually accompanied by clotted cream or vanilla ice cream. The dates are not detectable as dates in the finished pudding — they are soaked in boiling water with bicarbonate of soda until they dissolve to a paste, providing extraordinary moistness and a deep, caramel sweetness without any identifiable fruit character. The toffee sauce (butter, brown sugar, double cream) is made separately and poured over the pudding both before baking (optional) and generously at service. Invented at the Sharrow Bay Hotel in the Lake District in the 1970s (disputed), the pudding became a British restaurant staple by the 1990s.

Dessert course at British restaurants and gastropubs; at home Sunday pudding; pairs with clotted cream, vanilla ice cream, or crème fraîche; the date-toffee-cream combination is specifically British in its unashamed richness