Apple Sticky Toffee Pudding

Over the years, I’ve eaten a lot of apple cake for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year. While some of these cakes have been outstanding, others have left me wanting more flavor and depth. I’ve often felt that apple cake needed just one more thing to make it perfect, but it took me years to figure out what it was: toffee sauce.

This recipe combines Rosh Hashanah’s somewhat ubiquitous apple cake with sticky toffee pudding—one of my all-time favorite order-it-if-I-see-it desserts. Fresh autumn apples get cooked down with a bit of butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon; a portion of the glossy (not mushy) apples goes right into the batter with the rest spooned on top.

The cake includes a cup of chopped dates that have been soaked in warm coffee for a little intrigue and to balance the sweetness of the toffee sauce. And the sauce itself? It’s luscious and silky with just a pinch of salt. It’s so easy to make that you might find yourself whipping up a batch for drizzling on ice cream or for dipping apples into instead of the traditional honey. Sorry, honey!