Food for the gods

A dense date and walnut bar underbaked on purpose, so it stays chewy rather than cakey.

Egg. Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains egg, dairy (butter).

Ingredients

• 300 g dates, stoned and chopped
• 200 g walnuts, chopped
• 220 g plain flour
• 200 g dark muscovado sugar
• 100 g caster sugar
• 250 g butter, melted
• 3 eggs
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 0.5 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 tablespoons plain flour, to dust the fruit

Method

1. UNDERBAKED ON PURPOSE. Pull it out while a skewer still comes up with moist crumb on it -- not wet batter, but not clean either. Baked until a skewer comes out clean, these are a dry date cake cut into squares. The chew is the whole point and it comes from stopping early.
2. Chop the dates by hand rather than blending them. A paste disappears into the batter; pieces stay as pieces you find.
3. TOSS THE DATES AND WALNUTS IN THE 2 TABLESPOONS OF FLOUR before they go in. Undusted, sticky dates clump into a single mass at the bottom of the tin.
4. Toast the walnuts in a dry pan 4 minutes first. Untoasted they go soft and taste of nothing in a wet batter.
5. Beat the eggs with both sugars 2 minutes, then the melted butter in a thin stream, then the vanilla.
6. Flour, baking powder and salt folded in just until no dry flour is left.
7. Dates and walnuts folded through last.
8. Into a lined 30 by 20 cm tin, 2.5 cm deep, levelled. It is a thick batter and needs pushing into the corners.
9. Bake at 170C for 30 to 34 minutes. The top should be set and cracked and the middle should still be soft under pressure.
10. Cool COMPLETELY in the tin, at least 3 hours. Cut warm, an underbaked bar tears. Wrap each square in cellophane.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

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