Date Loaf

Angela's Note:

This recipe is from the Edmonds Cook Book. My kids love this, especially as an after school snack with a glass of milk. It has a lovely rich caramel flavour. I make mine without the walnuts and it's still great. Prep time includes 1 hour for soaking dates in boiling water.

• Total Time: 1 hrs 50 mins
• Prep Time: 1 hrs 5 mins
• Cook Time: 45 mins

Ingredients:

Yield: 1 loaf

• 1 cup chopped dates
• 1 cup boiling water
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg , beaten
• 1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
• ¼ teaspoon vanilla essence
• 2 cups plain baking flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

Directions:

1. Put dates, boiling water, butter and baking soda into a bowl and stir until butter is melted.
2. Set aside for one hour.
3. Beat sugar, egg, vanilla essence and walnuts (if using) into date mixture.
4. Sift in flour and baking powder and stir until just combined.
5. Pour mixture into a greased 22cm loaf tin and bake in a 180C oven for 45 minutes or until inserted skewer comes out clean.
6. Leave in tin for about 10 minutes before turning out onto cooling rack.

Reviews

[adania]

I had an idea for a bread involving chinese dates and pine nuts and 5-spice powder, and was searching around for date-bread recipes to base it on. I love this recipe for it!
Here is my variation: (my photos for this recipe are of my variation)
Chinese Red Dates for the Dates
Pine Nuts for the Walnuts
somewhere between a teaspoon and a tablespoon of Chinese 5-Spice Powder (Wu-Xiang Fen)
and i use almost no sugar, because the dates are so sweet already

Yumyumyum!

[Tamaretta]

This was a very nice loaf, even tho I accidentally skipped #2. I used a whole pkg of dates so it was a little more than 1 cup - maybe 1 1/3 cups? Perhaps that accounted for the extra sweetness? Next time I would still cut back on the brown sugar. Just had another slice this am slathered with cream cheese. Yum! Thanks for posting!

[limegreen cupcake]

This is a great recipe, thanks. I soaked the dates overnight and the loaf was really moist. This was such an easy recipe.