I always thought of dates as those yucky, sticky things young children were forced to eat in winter. I loved their dried version (known as chuara in Hindi) and my mom had to warn me against eating too many! I must've been weird! Somehow, packaged dates available in the US don't have that stickyness and I have learnt to love them :)
I would have loved to make a date relish I used to love. Its pretty simple - slice dates, add lime juice, rock salt and black pepper, shake shake, put the container out in the sun for a day. This relish is so yummy my mouth is watering as I write about it! I did not have rock salt on hand or this was definitely going to go to AFAM- Dates!
I am no baker - cook I can, bake I can't! Still I decided to make a date cake for AFAM (A Fruit A Month) - Dates from very talented Shilpa's Aayi's Recipes. Her recipe looked easy and quite doable. I had tried an eggless moist chocolate cake using her recipe, the cake had come out very good but I could smell baking soda in it, which kind of messed up the taste totally. This time instead of using the same baking soda I used 'khane ka soda/saajji na phool' that my mom-in-law brought me from India. I think they are one and the same but somehow the one I had used before was just not right!
You can check out the recipe here. I also added a handful of raisins and lots of chopped walnuts to the batter. I reduced the amount of sugar to 1/2 cup and still the cake was a tad sweeter than I would have liked. The dates I used were too sweet.
I am very impatient when it comes to cooking, when it comes to baking add anxiety to my impatience! I am almost in a 'praying' state as long as there is stuff inside the oven! More so when that 'stuff' is supposed to rise up to perfection and taste light, fluffy and moist!
I am glad to say in spite of my 'suck' level at baking the cake came out very good! It tasted great warm as well as cold. Next time I might add some cocoa powder to make a chocolate-date cake. Its a great tea-time cake and could work as a lovely dessert with ice-cream. Vanilla should be great with it (we had coconut-pineapple on hand :) ).
This Eggless Date and Nut cake is my entry to AFAM (A Fruit A Month) - Dates hosted by Chandrika of Akshayapatra.
I would have loved to make a date relish I used to love. Its pretty simple - slice dates, add lime juice, rock salt and black pepper, shake shake, put the container out in the sun for a day. This relish is so yummy my mouth is watering as I write about it! I did not have rock salt on hand or this was definitely going to go to AFAM- Dates!
I am no baker - cook I can, bake I can't! Still I decided to make a date cake for AFAM (A Fruit A Month) - Dates from very talented Shilpa's Aayi's Recipes. Her recipe looked easy and quite doable. I had tried an eggless moist chocolate cake using her recipe, the cake had come out very good but I could smell baking soda in it, which kind of messed up the taste totally. This time instead of using the same baking soda I used 'khane ka soda/saajji na phool' that my mom-in-law brought me from India. I think they are one and the same but somehow the one I had used before was just not right!
You can check out the recipe here. I also added a handful of raisins and lots of chopped walnuts to the batter. I reduced the amount of sugar to 1/2 cup and still the cake was a tad sweeter than I would have liked. The dates I used were too sweet.
I am very impatient when it comes to cooking, when it comes to baking add anxiety to my impatience! I am almost in a 'praying' state as long as there is stuff inside the oven! More so when that 'stuff' is supposed to rise up to perfection and taste light, fluffy and moist!
I am glad to say in spite of my 'suck' level at baking the cake came out very good! It tasted great warm as well as cold. Next time I might add some cocoa powder to make a chocolate-date cake. Its a great tea-time cake and could work as a lovely dessert with ice-cream. Vanilla should be great with it (we had coconut-pineapple on hand :) ).
This Eggless Date and Nut cake is my entry to AFAM (A Fruit A Month) - Dates hosted by Chandrika of Akshayapatra.
