This keto friendly Sticky Toffee Pudding recipe features a tender, moist almond flour cake smothered in a rich sugar free toffee sauce. A heavenly low carb dessert with less than 7g total carbs per serving. And you can bake it right in your Instant Pot!
Oh looky, what do we have here? Would you believe me if I told you it’s a keto version of Sticky Toffee Pudding? For those of you familiar with your classic British desserts, prepare to have your minds blown by this deliciousness!
My own mind was blown. This sticky toffee pudding recipe may have just shot to the top of my favorite holiday desserts list. An incredibly moist, tender cake with a thick rich toffee sauce. And I cooked it in my Instant Pot! But don’t worry, I am including instructions for the oven as well.
Never heard of sticky toffee pudding? I don’t care where you are from or what your traditions were growing up, you need to make this recipe now. I don’t mean in a few minutes, I mean RIGHT NOW!
What is Sticky Toffee Pudding?
It’s not pudding of the sort that most Americans would recognize. True to the delightful way the Brits use language, pudding can refer to dessert in general. It can also refer to a custard or a steamed cake. And sticky toffee pudding falls into the later category, although it can be baked or steamed.
Like many people, I’ve always assumed it was of British origin. But according to a couple of sources, its origins may actually be Canadian. Whoop whoop, another amazing dessert from my homeland! However, it was made famous by a hotel in the Lake District in the 1970s.
I don’t remember when I first heard of this delectable English treat but I do know that I wandered around London on my honeymoon, desperate to find some. I figured it would be sold in every restaurant and cafe but it was surprisingly hard to find. I did finally manage to get my fix at a little pub and it was just as good as it sounds.
The conventional Sticky Toffee Pudding recipe takes dates to help sweeten it. A lot of dates.
Dates are shockingly carby, did you know that? A single Medjool date has 20g of carbs. A cup of them has about 110g. GAH! That’s a shocking amount of carbohydrates for something that is not much bigger than a walnut.
I just got a toothache writing that.
How To Make Keto Sticky Toffee Pudding
Date-Free: Obviously the dates had to go. I considered chopping up a single date to put into the mix but that would add over 2g of carbs per serving. So to get that same deep flavor, I used a little Yacon syrup, which only has about 12g per tablespoon. You don’t need to use this if you prefer not to.
I also added a little cocoa powder to deepen the color of the cake, but not so much that you can taste any chocolate flavor.
Steamed or Baked? When I was researching Sticky Toffee Pudding recipes, I found that most of them are baked. But it occurred to me that using an Instant Pot would give it that fantastically moist steamed texture.
If you don’t have an instant pot, you can also bake it in a water bath (instructions included in the recipe notes).
Two different sweeteners: I know you want me to tell you that the toffee sauce can be made with whatever you have on hand. But it can’t. You need a sweetener like allulose or Bocha Sweet (or possibly xylitol) to make the sauce gooey. Swerve works perfectly in the cake itself but would recrystallize too much to be used alone in the sauce.
So the sauce takes both Swerve and allulose or Bocha Sweet. This combination of sweeteners is ideal for gooey rich sauces like caramel. I usually use Bocha Sweet in my sugar-free caramel sauce but this time I used allulose and it worked beautifully.
To deepen the color and make it more of a toffee sauce rather than caramel, I boiled it longer until it was a deep amber. It was truly a thing of beauty!
To serve the Sticky Toffee Pudding: This is an incredibly moist cake and it’s not easy to remove from the pan in one piece. You can cut it into wedges in the pan, but if you want to take it out intact, you must line the bottom with parchment paper. That way, you can flip it out onto a serving platter (the bottom will become the top of the cake).
Let the cake cool completely before trying to serve, so it holds together a little better. The toffee sauce is best served warm, and you can warm the individual slices of cake gently before serving.
Ready to try my keto version of this classic dessert? You won’t regret it!
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Keto Sticky Toffee Pudding
Ingredients
Cake:
- 2 teaspoon Yacon syrup (or molasses, optional)
- ½ cup hot water
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 ½ cups almond flour
- ½ tablespoon cocoa powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 6 tablespoon butter , softened
- ¾ cup Swerve Sweetener
- 2 large eggs , room temperature
Toffee Sauce:
- 6 tablespoon butter
- ¼ cup Swerve Brown
- ¼ cup Bocha Sweet or allulose sweetener
- ½ cup heavy whipping cream
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
Cake:
- Grease a 7-inch ceramic souffle dish. If you want to take the pudding out of dish whole, line with a circle of parchment paper on the bottom and grease the paper as well.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the Yacon syrup, hot water, and vanilla. Set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together the almond flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt.
- In a large bowl, beat the butter with the sweetener until lightened and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in the eggs until well combined, then beat in the almond flour mixture.
- Add the Yacon/hot water mixture and beat until the batter is smooth. Pour into the prepared baking dish and spread to the edges. Smooth the top and cover tightly with aluminum foil.
- Set the trivet into the Instant Pot and add 1 cup of water to the bottom. Carefully lower the baking pan onto the trivet and seal the lid. Make sure the vent is also sealed. Set to the cake setting (or Manual) for 45 minutes. (For Oven Baking Instructions, please see the Recipe Notes).
- Let the pressure release naturally from the Instant Pot before removing the cake. Let the cake cool completely to firm up, then flip out onto a serving platter (the bottom will now be the top) or cut into pieces in the pan.
Toffee Sauce:
- In a large saucepan over medium heat, combine the butter and the two sweeteners. Stir together as they melt and then bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium low and continue to cook about 5 minutes, until it's a deep amber. Keep your eye on it, as it can boil over or burn easily.
- Add the cream and vanilla extract. The mixture will bubble vigorously; this is normal. Whisk until smooth and boil another 2 minutes. Let cool to lukewarm before serving over the cake.
Notes
Jo Kent says
Perfect Christmas dessert! As it’s just the two of us for Christmas this year, I wanted a pudding that would be keto-friendly but not one that would be too many steps. I did a test run on this one the past weekend and it’ll be a perfect sub for the standard Christmas pudding. I’m out of Allulose at the moment so I skipped the caramel sauce. I made a half-sized cake and cooked it in the InstantPot in a small springform wrapped tightly with foil. It’s perfect, squidgy, and will be amazing with clotted cream. I did throw some orange zest in for an extra flavour bit and it’s delicious. Thanks!
ELAINE says
Hi, taste is great. I tried making dairy free so used margarine sticks. The cake and sauce texture were grainy (I guess crystalized). Do you think it was because of the margarine?
Carolyn says
I don’t use margarine so I really can’t say for sure. But what sweetener did you use? If the sauce re-crystallized, I suspect you didn’t use the same sweeteners as I did.
Patricia says
I have a Ninja Pressure Cooker. Do I need to use the steam function or the pressure function? It also has the baked function.
Thank you.
Carolyn says
Well, I’d do the pressure setting just to make it more like mine. Without trying it myself, I can’t say how the steam would work.
Lorie Cooper says
Carolyn can a 7 inch cheesecake pan be used instead?
Carolyn says
I would think so but wrap the bottom in foil so water doesn’t get in through the seam.
Lisa says
Could I replace the Yacon syrup &/or molasses with Swerve Brown? Would that still give it the flavor you need?
Tina says
Carolyn!
The best dessert I ever had in my life was a sticky toffee pudding in 2010 Vancouver, BC! I am a diehard chocolate fan, if it’s not chocolate, it’s not worth it. But sticky toffee pudding! I’ve dreamed about this for a few years! Thanks so much for posting this.
Christine A Frycz says
All i can say is OMG……this brings back memories of my mother making sticky pudding with rum sauce in soup cans when i was a child…..I followed the recipe with the exception of yacon syrup, used molasses. This turned out amazing. Thank you Thank you for such an amazing recipe!
Liz says
I am definitely going to try this. However, I am from the UK, and so as some of our sticky toffee pudding recipes call for, I will be adding chopped pecans to the recipe, as this they are delicious and low carb….. a bit like a maple pecan recipe. Yummy! Have you ever tried this?
Also, we would like a recipe for low carb custard (Creme Anglaise) to go with it, please?
Linda says
Now we need to figure out how to turn this into Sticky Toffee Pudding ice cream!! I loved that ice cream but it was one of those “limited” items! I miss it so much.
Dianne Vanderlist says
Most Keto recipes use nut flours. What can I use if have allergies to this
Carolyn says
Please peruse my quite extensive list of nut-free keto recipes in the recipe index.
Erica says
I have a question about baking in the oven. Do you cover just the pan with the batter or put foil over the entire baking pan with water and the actual cake pan? I haven’t made a steamed pudding since 1976 and cannot remember!
Thank you!
Carolyn says
Put foil over everything to trap the moisture and steam it.
Erica W Gott says
Thanks!
Elizabeth Hill says
Sounds fantastic. I have a 6.5 litre slow cooker so I guess I would put water in, then the dish and cook low for 6 hours? Would I still need to cover the dish in foil? Also would Sukrin Gold work as I have that already – Swerve brown is £17 in UK! I do have Tagatesse that claims it can be caramelised it contains Tagatose. I haven’t tried it in anything yet..
Carolyn says
I have not tried it in a slow cooker so I can’t advise too much but yes, I would still cover the top. I’d use Sukrin but if you don’t use some allulose, it will recrystallize.
Jeff says
This was phenomenal. I made it in the Instant Pot. I plated it by cutting circles out of the cake with an empty can, rolling the edges in powdered Swerve, toffee sauce between and on top of two of them layered and then dressed up with some keto candied pecans. Amazing.
Lo says
Do you think I could get away with doing this recipe dairy free???
Carolyn says
I really can’t say for sure but it’s worth a try.
Rachel says
Would lankato monkfruit sweetener work instead of bochasweet? Bochasweet gives me terrible tummy problems. I am not sure how people can tolerate it but I guess it doesn’t affect everyone the same.
Carolyn says
No it won’t work at all. Please read this article for an in-depth look at the qualities of various sweeteners. https://alldayidreamaboutfood.com/best-keto-sweeteners/
Allulose WILL work, though.
Sheri B. says
This was one of the foods I was prepared to break my keto diet for once or twice a year. STOP! There is no longer a need. Carolyn has done it yet again! This sticky toffee pudding recipe even had my daughter, a non-keto believer, satisfied! Very worth it. I made mine in the Instant Pot using a cake pan. I will start looking for a ceramic dish to make this in again. Thank you, Carolyn!
Carolyn says
I am THRILLED to hear that.
Larry says
I made this, and it was fantastic. As good as any STP I’ve ever eaten. I chopped a handful of pecans, and added them for a bit of texture.
Question, could hazelnut flour be used in place of almond flour? My wife has an almond allergy, and I’d like to make a version she can eat, too.
Carolyn says
I can’t see why not! It may come out a bit more dense because hazelnut flour is not quite as finely ground.
Ivy says
Hello,
If I want to do this recipe with individual souffle cups instead of one large one, does the cooking time change?
Carolyn says
It will change but I can’t guide you as to how, since I didn’t test my recipe this way.
Lisa says
Just made this last night in a 6.5 inch round glass container as nothing else would fit the instant pot! lol I was looking for a moist cake/pudding for a friend’s husband who just had surgery and is now on a “soft diet”. I stole a bite from the crumbs as I turned it over onto a plate and it is very moist and very yummy!! Should the cake and topping be kept in the fridge?
Carolyn says
Cake can be refrigerated but don’t put the topping in as it will get too hard.
Sneha Epstein says
This looks luscious! Do you think it would work if I halved the recipe? Thank you! 🙂
Carolyn says
Really not sure how long it would take to cook.
Shannon says
Is there any substitute for yacon syrup? I can’t find it anywhere.
Carolyn says
Molasses is your best bet.