A British dessert consisting of a moist, dense sponge cake made with dates, served warm and soaked in a rich toffee sauce, usually alongside cream or vanilla ice cream. Chef Francis Coulson is widely credited with popularizing the dish at the Sharrow Bay Country House Hotel in Cumbria during the 1970s, though its exact origin is disputed, with some accounts tracing an earlier version of the recipe to a home cook in Lancashire. The sponge is made by soaking chopped dates in boiling water, pureeing them, and folding the puree into a simple batter, while the toffee sauce is a cooked mixture of brown sugar, butter, and cream, sometimes finished with vanilla or a splash of rum or whisky.