Oven-Baked Treacle Sponge Pudding

This easy oven-baked treacle sponge pudding is a cosy comforting dessert year-round. Bake in a tin or dish without any steaming needed.

Jump to:

• ✏️ Why you'll love this recipe
• 🥘 Ingredients
• ♻️ Substitutions / Variations
• 📖 Method
• 💭 Top tips
• 🍯 Serving suggestions
• ❔ Recipe FAQs
• 🧁 Other goodies
• 📖 Recipe
• 💬 Comments

✏️ Why you'll love this recipe

Traditionally, a treacle sponge pudding is steamed. However, it's much quicker and easier to bake a classic treacle pudding in the oven.

There’s no faffing with a traditional pudding basin, circle of parchment paper, upturned saucer and kitchen string or worrying about whether the water level is high enough in your large saucepan or needs topping up as it simmers away.

This treacle sponge recipe uses a layer of tin foil over the top of the pan to keep the moisture in. The treacle sponge bakes in about a quarter of the time it takes to steam.

This black treacle pudding recipe uses dark treacle and golden syrup to give a delicious mixture of sweet syrupy goodness topped on a soft and moist brown sugar sponge.

This warm dessert is the perfect quick and easy pudding for after a mid-week dinner or go old-school and enjoy after a Sunday roast. I also love it for a cosy Fall and Winter dessert, and even for the Holidays as a Christmas dessert.

🥘 Ingredients

This treacle sponge recipe calls for the following ingredients:

• Golden syrup: homemade golden syrup or store-bought (e.g. Lyle's golden syrup)
• Black treacle
• Lemon zest and juice
• Unsalted butter: room temp for ease of mixing.
• Light brown soft sugar
• Eggs: large size, room temp.
• Vanilla extract: use extract or paste over essence for best flavour.
• Plain all-purpose flour: sieve for a smooth cake batter.
• Baking powder: sieve for a smooth batter.
• Milk: semi-skimmed or whole.

See the recipe card for quantities.

Top tip: For accuracy, it’s best to weigh your ingredients rather than using cups.

♻️ Substitutions / Variations

Ingredient substitutions

This treacle sponge recipe uses light soft brown sugar. However, you can instead use dark brown sugar, demerara sugar, white caster sugar or white granulated sugar.

You can swap the all-purpose plain flour for self-raising flour and exclude the baking powder.

The lemon zest and juice can be subbed for ½ an orange zest and juice for a sweeter dessert. The sharpness of the lemon cuts through some of the golden syrup sweetness though, which I adore!

You can swap the 1 ½ teaspoon of baking powder for ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda.

Syrup substitutions:

If you can't buy golden syrup, you can make homemade golden syrup.

It's also possible to swap it for light corn syrup or light treacle. Alternatively, you can use maple syrup. Check out this article for more information on golden syrup substitutes.

You can swap the black treacle for molasses, such as blackstrap molasses.

Syrup substitutions will change the flavour of your syrup pudding slightly, but still be delicious!

Equipment alternatives:

For this baked treacle sponge, I usually use an 8-inch (20cm) square cake tin. Alternatively, you can use a 1-litre baking dish.

For a classic pudding shape, you can instead use a 1-litre pudding basin to bake your treacle sponge. Increase the cooking time by 5-10mins.

Flavour options:

For a tasty twist, add ½ teaspoon of ground ginger. The treacle sweetness pairs perfectly with the depth of flavour added by the ginger and the hint of lemon!

📖 Method

1. Preheat oven: 180°C / 160°C (fan) / Gas Mark 4 / 350°F
2. In a mixing bowl, stir together the treacle, syrup, zest and lemon juice until smooth, then pour this into the base of a greased 8-inch square baking tin.
3. In a separate bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth.
4. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until fully combined.
5. Sieve in the flour and baking powder, gently folding this until the mixture until just combined.
6. Stir in the milk until smooth and then spoon the batter over the syrup in the pan and smooth gently until evenly spread across the syrup layer.
7. Cover the tin with a layer of foil and bake for 40-45 minutes until the sponge is risen and a skewer comes out clean from the middle.

💭 Top tips

• Your sponge batter should be a smooth, dropping consistency. If yours is too thick, add an extra tablespoon of milk. This should loosen up the batter and ensure you have a nice moist sponge!
• Lightly grease your cake tin or pudding dish, but don't line it with greaseproof paper. The syrup layer on the bottom and buttery moist sponge usually help it to come out from the cake pan nice and easily.
• Add your sponge batter over the syrup layer in the tin carefully, a spoonful at a time. Smooth gently to avoid pushing the syrup through any gaps and sides.
• You’ll know your treacle pudding is cooked once it's risen, golden on top and an inserted toothpick or skewer comes out clean from the centre of your cake.

🍯 Serving suggestions

This treacle sponge cake is best served fresh and hot from the oven. Simply pour double cream or custard (hot or cold) over your slice of cake and enjoy!

Alternatively, a big scoop of ice cream, such as vanilla or clotted cream flavour, would go great on your hot pudding. I love it when it melts slightly on top, soaking your sponge in even more goodness!

If you’ve made your treacle pudding in advance, you can reheat it in the microwave. I find it takes roughly 30 seconds to reheat a single slice.

I also enjoy adding a few extra tablespoons of golden syrup on top when serving up!

If you love the rich flavour of black treacle, add your extra golden syrup mixed with half the amount of black treacle and drizzle it over your hot pudding when serving up.

You can also top it with salted rum dulce de leche for a decadent boozy twist.

You may also like:

Looking forward to some new recipes? Check out my Youtube, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest pages for a few sneak peeks and some sweet inspiration!

Or if you’d like to hear about our latest recipes, why not subscribe to our newsletter?

📖 Recipe