One of the things I wanted to do when I started The North(ish) Lass was to highlight and promote small and medium companies that produce food and goods specifically made in the North. So, in that spirit, I thought I would start with one of my favourite items produced locally: Cartmel Sticky Toffee Pudding. I’m already drooling just thinking about it.

Cartmel Sticky Toffee Pudding started being made over thirty-five years ago in a family run restaurant, as well as being stocked in the village shop, and transformed overtime into the product known today. After customers to the village shop started asking “where can I find it local to where I live?” the family knew they had a very good thing on their hands, but had to figure out how to make the pudding and the sauce, package it, and have customers be able to create the taste they loved at home. Cartmel STP (Sticky Toffee Pudding) were the first company in the UK to try serving the pudding and sauce together in a foil tin, with the sauce already on top and cooling it after baking. This then allowed purchasers to reheat it at home, with the sauce already soaking into the pudding. Delicious.

Initially, the family were ferrying the product around to local delis and independent shops in a car, and then a trailer, then a horsebox, and finally… a van. Of course, with such a high demand, soon the under-the-counter oven in the village shop where this had all started couldn’t keep up with the orders. After several iterations in Cartmel itself, including a new kitchen being built, eventually a new site had to be fine. This was kept local, with a purpose built bakery being opened in 2004 in the village of Flookburgh, about three miles down the road from Cartmel village.

Nowadays, the company don’t just do Sticky Toffee Pudding, but several other desserts and other products as well, which can be found in Booths, Waitrose, and other shops including independent restaurants, delis, and cafes. You can find out more about the company, and their products, on their website.