That's Right: Martha Stewart is Never Wrong

Upside Down Salty-Sticky Toffee Pudding with Nuts, Nuts, Nuts

This is what you get when you cross an English toffee pudding with a sticky-bun-loving recipe developer (me!) who has a tendency for overdelivering on pecans, hazelnuts, and pistachios. (And can also get down with eating her own words.)

SUGAR AND SPICE AND EVERYTHING SLICE

I originally developed this upside down spin on a traditional sticky toffee pudding early on in my career, when I was just starting to learn how to properly create and document my recipes. A wee cook!

VINTAGE COOK, VINTAGE (PIC) QUALITY

During those days, I was a fiend for sugar, immune to hangovers (and liked to prove it often), and in a continual, innocent state of bliss, having landed in this entrancing world of food media (or maybe it was just all of the alcohol).

HOLIDAY BLISS

Feeling pretty nostalgic last week, I considered resurrecting this gem of a recipe for all you NOODLERS. Now is the quintessential time of year (festive!) for a dessert with such preponderant ratios of butter to sugar to flour.

I find something sacred about dispensing particularly decadent recipes that I know will be shared during special moments, made all the more so if boasting warm spices, molasses, and booze. This is not an everyday dessert (though if you add it to your regular rotation, hats off— in perpetuity.)

SOAKED AND SEASONAL

BUT I COULDN’T FIND THE RECIPE

I plugged in “Upside Down Sticky Toffee Pudding” on marthastewart.com, the consummate source for all of the recipes I developed during my years there. But the only search result that returned was a story on a wedding in the English countryside, featuring a purple and navy color palette, handwritten invitations, and sticky toffee pudding (one-third of the couple’s dessert trio). Looked like a lovely affair, but didn’t help my cause.

My recipe relic had disappeared! And so, I had one lone choice, which was to flip the couch cushions and dig around for the only documentation of it that exists: my television appearance on The Martha Stewart Show, in which I make the dessert with the boss herself. I found it. I watched. I cringed.

And for the sake of worldwide recipe prosperity, I notated the ingredients and quantities, just as I used to do when I was an even MORE wee cook (like, of the variety of people whose age is still one digit), watching Martha on TV and transcribing her recipes in my elemental puffy handwriting every single Saturday morning of my childhood.

OLDER, NOT WISER

When looking through the notes I took from my appearance, I began to criticize my quantities, ratios, and method. What were you THINKING, you young buck?! I decided to refresh the recipe into something more representative of my maturity, snickering at my younger self’s sugary inclinations. So, I dialed way back on sweetness, increased the salt and spices, mixed up the nuts, and showered the baked result with flaky Maldon salt upon exit from the oven. The outcome? Not great. Dry. Blah. And the topping— that is, the whole upside-down element of this pudding— didn’t release properly from the pan. Womp.

TRY AND TRY

So I made it again (and again, and again), with fewer and fewer tweaks at each round. Much to my disbelief, I found myself moving closer and closer to the archetype, and what I eventually landed on was a much truer homage to the OG.

The big lesson here is to trust yourself. Even the younger you, who in hindsight you may be inclined to second guess. And the small lesson? When it comes to baking, sugar turns to liquid in the oven. So all of that brown sugar in this recipe (and maple syrup and molasses) equals moisture. And what are the holidays if not a cake that can stand up to nog, amiright!?

The resulting recipe has gone through some micro adjustments, and sure, it’s even better (and certainly wouldn't be appearing here unless I found it worthy of another run on national television). But ultimately, the original core spirit of this dessert remains, covered in the sticky fingerprints of that gusto-filled, sweets-craving lil’ recipe developer.

And me oh my did I catch a glimpse of her on many occasions over this past week, “sampling” sliver after sliver.

THE SLATHER BEFORE THE SLIVER

Each bite delivers with a heady punch of roasty nuts, quick-caramelized in salty toffee to create a sticky-crunchy topper that lies just above the cake layer. Out of the oven and flipped onto a plate, the whole thing receives pokes from toothpicks and a generous dousing of the sauce: reduced butter, cream, maple, brown sugar, and salt. Warm and sticky and soaked.

I HATE RUM. EXCEPT WHEN I DON’T.

All of those years ago, mixing up the batter side-by-side, Martha suggested the addition of rum. Despite that I place rum last on my list of most imbibable spirits, her suggestion is now reflected in the updated recipe, because I have learned many times over that Martha is never wrong.

And she’s not. Rum’s alcoholic heat cooks off while baking and only its woodsy-sweet aromas remain, evoking the same cozy frequencies as listening to Tchaikovsky while burning white birch logs.

UPSIDE DOWN

Ah, the cheap thrill of inverting an upside down cake. That moment of reveal. Just the right amount of pomp and circumstance. Unless you don’t ace it. Almost as bad as wearing a wrinkled blouse. Or having a permanent burn ring on your cutting board.

Lucky you, I’ve tested and tested and ironed out the kinks so this outcome won’t befall you. SEASON’S GREETINGS, NOODLERS. Expect success, more like this:

SATISFACTION. IT AWAITS!

Nailing an upside-down dessert is like putting a letter in the mail, evoking the feeling that you’re accomplished, totally on top of things, and a little old fashioned in the best way. Kinda like the boss herself.

~FIN~

UPSIDE DOWN SALTY-STICKY TOFFEE PUDDING WITH NUTS, NUTS, NUTS

Serves 10-12