Sweet Date Bread

A bit of a disasterous bake; chopping dates took a sticky 45 minutes, then I lost my in-progess photos, then the 50min bake time was far too short. But, the cake itself was delicious, it's just a shame that dates get such a bad rep in the western world so I struggled to shift it in the offices my husband & I frequent.

Normally this would be a photo of the ingredients, but I lost all the in-progress photos I took

In terms of the mixing process, the cake was easy to put together. What had prevented me from doing this bake straight away was the fact that I had to finely chop 400g of stoned dates. This was as arduous as you'd imagine; every 5-6 dates I'd have to wash my fingers and knife with hot water to stop it sticking. It took close to 45minutes just to chop them fine enough, and even then most of the dates ended up floating to the top of the cake.

So, the bake itself. After 50min at 190C, I took out the cake, stuck a chopstick in it and it came out mostly clean. I say mostly, so I popped it back in for another 10min.

10 min later I take it out and decide to try to turn it out. This cake was not budging from the tin. Then, suddenly, the bloody top fell off! The bottom half of the cake had baked, the crust had formed on the top, but the centre was still soft dough.

Swearing, I just picked up the doughy mess and stuck it back in the tin and back in the oven. It took another 25min (on a slightly lower setting and with foil on top to prevent it burning) before it was finally cooked, and even then there was a small patch right in the centre which wasn't fully baked.

The top bit that fell off & got re-attached.

Once baked the cake was really good. The sultanas and nuts didn't actually add much flavour, but the dates just brought a gentle sweetness and the cake was surprisingly light for all that 'fruit.' Still not my favourite teacake/bread so far from the book (that still goes to the Apple Loaf) and I'm not convinced the pay off is worth the effort of chopping dates.

Sweet Date Bread

400g plain flour

pinch salt

4 tsp bicarb of soda

150g soft dark brown sugar

125g sultanas or seedless raisins

75g walnuts

50g margarine

400g stoned dates, finely chopped

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla essence

Grease a 9 x 5 x 3inch loaf tin. Set the oven to 190c / gas 5. Sift the flour, salt and bicarb into a large bowl. Add the sugar and sultanas or raisins, then the walnuts.

Add the margarine to the dates and pour on 250ml boiling water. Add the date mixture, eggs and vanilla essence to the dry ingredients and mix thouroughly. Put the mixture into the prepared loaf tin.

Bake for 40-50 min (or 1 hr 20 if your oven is dodgy like mine) until the loaf is golden brown and a skewer pushed into the loaf comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.