What is the name of the British dessert made with dates, sponge cake, and toffee sauce?

The British dessert made with dates, sponge cake, and toffee sauce is sticky toffee pudding.

It is a moist sponge cake containing chopped dates, served warm with a toffee sauce. Vanilla ice cream or custard is a common accompaniment. The dates provide both sweetness and moisture, while the sauce gives the dessert its characteristic sticky texture.

Despite its name, the dish is a steamed or baked pudding in the British sense of the word, where “pudding” can mean a dessert rather than a specific custard. Its precise origin is debated, but the dessert became strongly associated with the Lake District and Sharrow Bay Country House Hotel in Cumbria.

Sticky toffee pudding is distinct from treacle sponge, which generally uses a syrup topping and does not require dates. That difference helps identify the canonical dish even though British pudding recipes often overlap in presentation.