Stuffed Sticky Toffee Muffins (Easy Recipe)

If you love sticky toffee pudding as much as I do, you are going to adore these stuffed sticky toffee muffins. They are soft, moist, and packed with chopped dates and homemade toffee pieces with a delicious gooey sticky toffee sauce hidden in the middle.

These muffins are inspired by the classic British dessert, combining one of my favourite base mixtures for muffins, with a deliciously rich toffee flavour. They are finished with an extra drizzle of toffee sauce and a dusting of icing sugar, making them perfect for a cosy bake.

Notes from The Patisserie

I have made so many delicious sticky toffee inspired bakes over my time, including a very sticky toffee pudding like muffin recipe in my second book Jane’s Patisserie Celebrate and I wanted to do another one that is completely different, using a similar recipe to my base muffin mixture that I use in so many recipes now.

The base mixture has a wonderful moisture coming from a mix of melted butter and oil, as well as being stuffed with my favourite homemade toffee sauce recipe. The gooey texture of the sauce adds even more moisture and makes them gooey, delicious and incredibly moreish.

Ingredient Notes and Tips

The muffin mixture is a delicious base mixture that works in so many recipes including my Bakewell Muffins, and my Oreo muffins for example. I change things up slightly depending on flavour profile, but I adore it in these. Find the full recipe in the recipe card below:

• Butter and oil – I like to use a combination of butter and oil for flavour and texture. I’d recommend block butter at room temperature, and a flavourless oil such as vegetable or sunflower oil personally
• Sugar – light brown soft sugar brings a flavour element with a natural light molasses to it, but as these are sticky toffee themed you can swap to dark brown soft sugar for a deeper flavour
• Eggs – I use medium eggs for consistency in all of my bakes, but you can use two large 
• Flour – I used plain flour + baking powder on this occasion as it’s what I had. You can swap to self raising flour and remove the baking powder if you prefer
• Salt – optional, but helps provide a balance of flavour. I like to use sea salt in my baking 
• Buttermilk – the buttermilk adds moisture, and lightness. You can buy your own by adding 125 of any milk, and half a tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar to the milk. Mix it together and let it sit before using in the bake
• Flavours – I use vanilla to help contrast against the natural molasses flavour, but it is optional

Flavouring a sticky toffee muffin

I have recently shared my recipe for my homemade hard toffee, and these muffins are one of the best ways to use it. With the nature of the hard toffee, it does melt into the muffins as it bakes but will firm up again once they have cooled.

I like to use relatively small pieces of toffee so that there is more distribution, and pieces that are too large may likely sink and solidify at the bottom. If you do not have toffee, you can use fudge pieces (find them in the supermarket) or you could swap to chocolate chips of any flavour – I’d suggest white chocolate.

I use chopped up dates as well as personally you cannot have sticky toffee pudding without them in my eyes, but I understand that not everyone likes dates. You can remove the dates from the recipe and replace with chocolate as well.

Stuffing a baked muffin

As I wanted these muffins to be a ‘stuffed’ muffin, I used my classic homemade sticky toffee sauce recipe that I adore using in all sorts of bakes, but after the muffins have baked. I found this best, because if they were stuffed before hand, along with the homemade hard toffee chunks it was all a bit too much.

Using a piping bag, you can insert the end of a piping bag into the top of a freshly baked muffin, and squeeze some of the sauce inside (you’ll see the muffin inflate) and then you can drizzle a little extra on top. This is optional of course, but as the muffins cool they will stay nice and gooey.

Top Tips and Troubleshooting

• Use tulip style muffin cases – these are far larger than other ‘muffin’ cases that look a lot like cupcake cases. It gives them plenty of room to rise and stuff
• Don’t over mix the batter – over mixing a batter like this leads to dense muffins. I do not use a mixer to make these as I find it can easily over do it
• Chop the dates and toffee into small pieces – the distribution is better, and there is less chance of them sinking (but some sinking is inevitable)
• Let the sauce cool slightly – If it’s piping hot, it will be too hot to handle. Make sure to not over boil it either as it will thicken as it cools

Storage & Freezing

These cupcakes are so delicious when warm and fresh out of the oven, they are definitely best on the day of baking. However, they do last for 4+ days, at room temperature. The fridge may dry them out.

These muffins can freeze for 3+ months – I would thaw them either in the fridge overnight, or on the side for a couple of hours.