I wanted to share a recipe with you today for old fashioned date bars. This is the kind of recipe your grandmother would have made. My recipe comes handed down generation through generation.
It was my mother's maternal Aunt Orabelle's recipe and was probably my Great Grandmother Best's recipe. People have been baking these delicious date bars in my family for a very long time. No small wonder. They are delicious!
These have long been a family favorite. My mother always, always made them at Christmas. She never really baked any other time of the year.
It is something I used to bake for my own children. I small batched the recipe today because, now that I am on my own, I just don't need a big pan of date bars tempting me to dig in.
I think these are also called Matrimonial Bars. There are about a bazillion recipes for them out there in the world. This one is my family's recipe.
My Aunt Orabelle passed away when I was a young teenager, so you know this is not a copycat recipe, but a family recipe. I love family recipes. They are laced with history and feelings of love. Most come from a different era where every woman cooked and baked for her family, having been taught to do so at her mother's knee.
Aunt Orabelle was no different. She was my Grandmother Nina's oldest sister. She married a farmer on the South Mountain up in Inglisville, named Robie McGill. The old farm is still there as far as I know.
Uncle Robie used to keep an old white horse in the pasture next to the farm house. When we knew it, the horse was blind and could no longer see, but we used to love to feed it apples and carrots.
I am not sure how it knew we were there, but somehow it did and it would amble over to the fence and we would hold them out to the horse in our hands and it would take them from us and eat them, nickering gently while it did. It never bit us.
Aunt Orabelle also made great doughnuts. Mom said that in her later years her fingers were always burnt because when she was frying them, they would dip down into the hot fat. She had no feeling in them, so didn't know they were being burnt. (*cringe*)
She was already quite old when we used to go there, Uncle Robie was no longer with us. I just basically remember as a very old lady sitting in a rocking chair in the kitchen. We were banished outside to feed and talk to the horse.
Aunt Orabelle had dementia at that point in her life, which now that I think about it is kind of worrisome as her mother also had it when she passed as did my own mother. But we won't think about that.
These are the perfect date squares. There is nothing unusual here. Just simple old fashioned wholesome ingredients.
Oats and dates are the primary ingredients.
I always use the large flaked old fashioned rolled oats. Don't ever be tempted to use instant oats or any other kind. Only the large flaked oats will give you the perfect result.
Instant oats would just be all wrong. All wrong.
My Aunt and mother always used the block dates that came pitted and wrapped in plastic. They were very easy to cut down through the block into bits.
I use loose dates, usually organic Medjool, and I cut them into bits with kitchen scissors. I doubt very much that organic would have been available back then.
While I am at it, I want to draw your attention to this little piece of handiwork of my mothers. Its an old tea towel that she embroidered many, many years ago and gave to me.
It is the only piece of handiwork of hers that I have and I am so grateful that I had the forethought to stick it into my suitcase when I came back to Canada. It would have been lost otherwise.
Like me, my mother loved to embroider and there are quite a few bits of her work still around. This one is mine and I treasure it.
I always make the date filling first so that it can cool somewhat before I use it. Its as simple as simmering dates together with a tiny bit of brown sugar and some boiling water.
You might think it a very watery mix when you first start to cook them, but don't worry, the dates break down as they cook and it all thickens up very nicely.
I have seen people adding lemon or orange to the dates, but Aunt Orabelle never did and this is how we like them.
The oat crumble mixture for these bars is very simple. Flour, brown sugar, soda and salt are put into a bowl and then butter is rubbed into them, which gives you a crumbly mixture.
You then rub the old fashioned oats into the mix. The mixture will be quite crumbly.
About two thirds of the oat crumble gets packed into your prepared baking tin. I like to line my tin with baking paper, which makes it very easy to lift them out with later.
I always press the bottom layer down quite firmly. This is going to form your base and you don't want it falling apart.
The date mixture then gets spread evenly over top.
Once you've done that you simply crumble the remaining oat mixture over top. As evenly as you can. Its okay however if some areas have a bit more than others.
Oh boy, anticipation of the treat which lies ahead should have your tastebuds tingling right about now.
They don't take long to bake. Only about half an hour all told. You will want to leave them to cool completely in the pan.
In fact I like to chill them in the refrigerator so that I can cut them into neater squares. If you can resist them, leave them overnight.
If you have taken my tip and used baking paper, they are very easy to lift out of the pan to a cutting board. I know adding the paper is an extra little step, and not one my old Aunt would have used, although she may have used wax paper. My mom did.
Lifting them out to a cutting board to cut them into slices is the best option. They can be a bit crumbly and this way you will get a much neater slice.
They are knife and fork bars. At least I like to eat them with a knife and fork. I enjoy having a hot cuppa with them as well. Today it was Lemon & Ginger tea, Twinings. One of my favourites.
It went so well with these beautiful bars. I sat in my chair, sipping my tea and enjoying my bars, lifting up the crumbs with a wet finger so that I didn't mess one speck of their sweet, buttery and crumbly deliciousness.
Family recipes and memories are one of life's little pleasures and joys.
Classic Date Squares (small batch)
Yield: Makes 8 squares
Prep time: 10 MinCook time: 25 MinTotal time: 35 Min
This is my Great Aunt Orabelle's recipe, handed down through the generations. Small batched for the smaller family to make only 8 delicious bars.
Ingredients
- 1 cups (156g) chopped pitted dates
- 1 TBS brown sugar
- 1/2 cup (120ml) boiling water
- 1/2 cup (70g) plain flour
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- pinch salt
- 6 TBS (95g) butter
- 1/2 cup (100g) packed light soft brown sugar
- 1 cup (80g) oats (not instant. I like the old fashioned large flaked oats)
Instructions
- Pre-heat the oven to 350*F/180*C/gas mark 4. Lightly butter a 7- inch square baking tin, line with baking paper leaving an overhang, and set it aside.
- Put the dates into a saucepan along with the TBS of brown sugar and the boiling water. Bring the mixture to the boil and then simmer for about five minutes, until the dates are soft and smooth and most of the water has been absorbed. Mash with a fork and set aside.
- Put the flour, soda, salt and brown sugar into a large bowl and give them a good mix together. Rub in the butter until it resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in the oats and give them a bit of a rub again to mix well. The mixture should stay quite crumbly.
- Put half of the crumbs into the prepared pan and press it down evenly. Spread the cooked date mixture evenly over top of it, then sprinkle the remaining crumbs evenly over top. Press them down very lightly to even them out.
- Bake in the heated oven for 25 minutes, until set and lightly browned. Remove from the oven to a wire rack to cook before cutting into squares to serve. (I leave them overnight, and then lift them out by the baking paper to a cutting board.)
Applesauce Spice Cake. I confess to having a great love for spice cakes. Not only do they taste pretty wonderful, but they also smell heavenly when they are baking.
Not a lot of people bake spice cakes these days. Spice cake is a bit of an old fashioned concept in cakes. Young people want sparkle and dazzle. I confess I don't understand the draw to funfetti cakes. Perhaps it is a generational thing.
Give me something simple any day of the week and I am more than happy. Over the moon in fact.
This is an old fashioned cake recipe, much in the style of what your grandmother might have baked, and her mother before her. There are no bells and whistles, not unless you consider a frosting a bell or a whistle!
It uses simple, every day ingredients, and goes perfectly with a nice hot cuppa. (Today it was Creamy Peach herbal tea.)
It is quite a bit cooler outside today, and raining. I didn't mind putting my oven on to bake this lovely cake. And once I walked down to check my mail and returned, the smell of the baked cake started my tastebuds to tingling.
I wasn't long making the frosting, icing the cake and putting the kettle on so that I could sit down and enjoy a piece with a nice hot cuppa.
It is a very simple cake to make. It is also a small batch recipe. It makes four perfect layer cake slices.
I frosted it with a cinnamon buttercream frosting. Just in the middle and on the top. I did not bother with the sides, although you certainly could if you wanted to.
The cake itself is a simple cake. Butter and sugar are creamed together to begin with. I used demerara sugar, which is a type of brown sugar.
I used some applesauce as well. Because I am on my own, I buy my applesauce in small single serve pots. The kind you might buy to put in children's lunch boxes. It just makes sense, and there is no waste. What doesn't go into the cake, I just eat with a spoon. (Its good for you! Especially if you buy the unsweetened kind!) 
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You only need an egg yolk, not the white. I always freeze the whites. I always use them. You can add them to omelets if you are making one, or use them to make an angel food cake, once you have enough.
I make a lovely Angel Food Cake for Two. Its delicious! You can find that recipe here.
The cake itself is filled with lots of lovely warm baking spices. Cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cardamom and some cloves.
I also add vanilla and lemon extracts. An old Italian woman taught me a long time to add a splash of lemon whenever I was using vanilla in cakes like this.
I am not sure how it works exactly, but the vanilla flavor really pops when you do that! Its like magic!
I also added some raisins to the cake. You don't need to, its completely optional. I happen to really like raisins however and, for me at least, they are a perfect addition to a spice cake.
There are not a lot of them, just a few. Nice little sticky surprises when you go to eat the cake. You could also add toasted walnuts if you wanted to.
Or just leave the cake as is, unadulterated by anything but those lovely warm baking spices.
The cake itself bakes in an 8-inch square baking dish. It won't look very tall when you take it out of the oven. You could also bake it in a loaf tin if you wanted to, but I find the 8-inch square dish to be the perfect size.
I butter it and then line it with paper, leaving an overhang which makes it very easy to lift the cake out when done.
The cake itself only takes about 25 minutes to cook. And it cools very quickly as well.
I like to cut the cooled cake in half down though the center of the cake, creating two 4 by 8-inch rectangles. The perfect size for filling and layering together with a lush cinnamon buttercream frosting.
This is also very easy to make. Just bang everything into a bowl and beat it up with an electric hand whisk until everything is light, creamy and ready for spreading. I only fill and top the cake.
As you can see it makes a very generous and creamy filling and topping. There is no need to ice the sides.
This went down a real treat with my hot cuppa, and I guarantee it will go down a real treat with yours too! A spicy, moist and delicious cake with a fabulously creamy frosting. What's not to enjoy!!
Applesauce Spice Cake with a Cinnamon Buttercream Frosting
Yield: 2 with leftovers
Prep time: 10 MinCook time: 25 MinTotal time: 35 Min
This delicious, moist cake is nicely spiced, and studded with raisins. It cuts into exactly four pieces. The cinnamon buttercream is the perfect adornment!
Ingredients
- 2 TBS butter
- 2 TBS demerara sugar, packed (you can use granulated sugar if you want a lighter cake)
- 1 large free range egg yolk (freeze the white for another time)
- 1/4 cup (62g) applesauce
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/4 tsp lemon extract
- 2/3 cup (90g) plain all purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp ground ginger
- 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/8 tsp ground cloves
- 1/8 tsp ground cardamom
- pinch of salt
- 1/4 cup (60ml) milk
- 1/4 cup (35g) dark raisins (optional)
For the frosting:
- 2 TBS butter
- 2 cups (260g) icing sugar, sifted
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 2 TBS milk (or as needed)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350*F/180*C/ gas mark 4. Butter an 8 inch square baking dish. Line with baking paper, leaving an overhang for ease in lifting out.
- Sift together the flour, spices, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
- Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg yolk, vanilla and lemon extracts, and apple sauce. (If the batter curdles, add a spoonful of the flour mixture.)
- Beat in the flour, alternately with the milk. You should have a batter with a soft dropping consistency.
- Fold in the raisins, if using, and then spread the batter in the prepared baking dish.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 25 minutes, until risen, and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. The top should also spring back when lightly touched.
- Lift out from the baking dish and allow to cool completely on a wire rack.
- To make the icing measure all of the ingredients into a bowl and beat together, only adding enough milk to give you a smooth and creamy consistency. (You may need more milk. )
- Cut the cake in half through the center.
- Put a dollop of icing on a serving plate. Place 1/2 of the cake on the plate, bottom side up. Spread with half the icing. Place the other cake half on top, right side up. Spread the remaining frosting on top.
I had a bit of stale bread that I wanted to use before it went moldy the other day and so I decided to make a Bread & Butter Pudding. Bread & Butter Pudding is a real favorite dessert in the UK. I don't think I had ever really had it before I moved over there.
Its a pudding made with buttered bread and custard. An old fashioned bread and butter pudding will have raisins in it, and not much else. You will sometimes see bread and butter pudding with jam.
That is one of my favorite versions. Little bread and jam sandwiches baked in a rich custard. Its really yummy!
I actually have quite a few bread pudding recipes on the blog. You can access them from here. There is something there which is sure to please everyone and every taste!
I thought I would try something a little bit different today. First of all I wanted a bread pudding that wasn't overly large. So I downsized a pudding I found in a cookbook I have by Martha Stewart called Dinner at Home.
Its a great book, filled with lots of yummy menus and recipes. Her recipe called for rum. Rum is not something I keep in my house because I don't really drink alcohol, although I do cook with it from time to time.
I used to keep small bottles of quite a few things in the larder to cook with, small bottles of liqueurs etc. I have had to replace so many things here, setting myself back up again, that buying alcohol has been low on my priority list, so no cooking alcohol for now.
I decided I would use Ginger Syrup in it's place. Some of you may recall me making my own preserved ginger in syrup last December. You can access that recipe here.
Its actually very easy to make and its a great ingredient to have on hand. You will find millions of uses for both the knobs of preserved ginger and for the syrup. Its lovely. Sometimes I will add a touch of it to a lemon glaze when I am glazing a gingerbread or some such.
Its really delicious and pieces of the ginger are really nice as decorations on cakes, or even in cakes. I highly recommend you make some.
I felt that some of the syrup would make a great substitution for the rum, which meant I also had to cut back on the sugar. I decided to use honey instead of sugar.
Honey and ginger are perfect partners. Add some lemon into the mix and you have a trinity of beautiful flavors, and one very tasty bread pudding!
Don't worry if you can't find or don't have preserved ginger. You can just use extra honey in it's place and add some powdered dried ginger in it's place. It will work find.
I added some lemon into the pudding along with the vanilla in the way of lemon extract. I also introduced a bit of grated lemon zest. You won't be using any refined sugar at all, except for a bit of demerara sugar sprinkled on top before baking.
For even more ginger flavor, I added a small quantity of chopped candied ginger. I so love candied ginger. I sometimes sit and eat a piece of it instead of a sweetie, which totally satisfies my sweet tooth in a fabulously tasty way.
Have I mentioned how much I love ginger??? Well now you know! I love LOVE ginger.
I also cut the recipe in half to serve only two people, which it does very generously. Her recipe said that it fed four with leftovers. Mine feeds two generously.
I used a rustic white bread. Some of a Stale boule I had in the fridge. I cut off all of the crust and then buttered it lightly with some softened butter. (The birds enjoyed the crusts)
I then cut the bread into cubes. She had cut hers into quarters, but it is kind of hard to cut slices of a boule into quarters or triangles.
I thought cubes would work well and they did. I mixed the buttered bread with the pieces of candied ginger.
The custard which is poured over top is made by beating together some whole milk, cream, and the other liquid ingredients, along with the lemon zest.
You just pour it evenly over top of the bread mixture, and then you just leave it to sit for an hour. Don't skip this step.
That sitting time allows for the bread to soak up as much of that custard as it can, which results in a pudding with a lovely light and creamy texture.
Once the hour is up you can bake the pudding. I sprinkled some demerara sugar over top just before baking, for a bit of a sparkle and a tiny bit of sweet.
There is no sugar in the pudding itself, just the honey and the ginger syrup.
It gets baked for about a half an hour in a hot oven. If you think it is getting browned too quickly on top, cover it with a sheet of aluminum foil. It works a charm.
I had always thought that with foil you wanted the shiny side away from the food, and dull side in. Actually it is the other way around according to my sister.
In all truth, it probably doesn't matter much.
This soufflés up really nicely in the oven. It comes out all nice and puffy. It is done when a knife inserted near the center comes out clean. If its not quite done, pop it back in for a few more minutes.
Easy peasy lemon squeasy as they say!
Martha served hers simply with some strawberries which she macerated in their own juices with a bit of sugar. I thought that was perfect.
I had some lovely berries that a lady brought to my door that were beautiful and extremely fresh. Picked just that morning. They tasted lovely.
I knew they would go really well with this pudding. I simply washed them, cut them in half and tossed them with a bit of sugar, leaving them to sit for about 10 minutes.
You could also toss them wit some ginger syrup if you wanted to. Its up to you really.
This was a beautiful pudding really. Crunchy on the outside. Soft and creamy on the inside, with lovely lemon and ginger flavours.
Tiny bits of candied ginger, strewn throughout and a few bits on the top that got a bit crunchy. Just lovely. I think I may have found my new favorite bread and butter pudding! I think you are going to love it too!!
Ginger & Honey Bread & Butter Pudding with Strawberries
Yield: serves 2
Prep time: 1 H & 10 MCook time: 30 MinTotal time: 1 H & 40 M
Make sure you soak the bread for at least an hour prior to baking. This delicious rich pudding serves two generously.
Ingredients
- 2 large free range eggs
- 1/2 cup (120ml) whole milk
- 1/2 cup (120ml) heavy cream
- 2 TBS liquid honey (pick one with a nice flavor)
- 1 TBS ginger syrup (if you can't find it, use an additional TBS of honey) (from a jar of preserved ginger)
- 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp lemon extract
- the grated zest of half a lemon
- 2 TBS chopped candied ginger
- pinch of salt
- 4 thin slices of day old rustic white bread, crusts removed
- softened butter to spread
- 1 TBS demerara sugar to sprinkle on top
For the berries:
- 1/2 pint fresh strawberries, rinsed, hulled and cut in half
- 1 TBS sugar
Instructions
- Whisk together the eggs, milk, cream, honey, ginger syrup, vanilla, lemon extract, lemon zest, and salt.
- Butter a small rectangular casserole dish which holds two cups.
- Butter your bread slices on one side and cut into cubes. Toss them together with the chopped candied ginger and pop them into the prepared casserole dish.
- Pour the egg mixture over top. Let stand at room temperature for one hour.
- Preheat the oven to 400*F/200*C/ gas mark 6.
- Sprinkle the demerara sugar over top of the casserole and then pop it into the oven. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes until golden and set. Remove from the oven.
- Combine the prepared strawberries with the sugar and leave to macerate for about 10 minutes, tossing occasionally.
- Serve the bread pudding warm in dishes with some of the berries on the side. Delicious!
Notes:
Ginger syrup is the syrup which surrounds preserved ginger in the jar. It is thick and syrupy and has a lovely ginger flavor. If you cannot find it, just use honey in it's place and perhaps add 1/4 tsp of powdered ginger to the egg mixture.
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