A Date With Destiny …

Whilst looking through ‘The Mosquito’ – an excellent resource and good value, too! – I came across a recipe for a date and walnut cake from June 1939 (No. 46, page 49). I’m no baker, but I do like pottering in the kitchen. Admittedly it’s mainly to listen to history podcasts, but I can turn out a reasonable tea loaf, so thought this would be within my capabilities. The opportunity came when we were given a bag of fresh walnuts so, with just some stoned dates to buy, I was off!

I know the recipe says ‘Walnut and Date Cake’ but I think ‘Date and Walnut’ trips off the tongue more readily!

Ingredients

• 1 lb stoned dates;
• 2 ozs walnuts – I put in 3 ozs as I had them and 2 ozs didn’t look much next to a pound of dates!
• 2 teacups of boiling water (bare measure) – I have no idea what this means but two measures of one of our posh teacups did the trick!
• 1½ teacups of sugar – I don’t have a very sweet tooth and given that a pound of dates is rather sweet I put in a little under a teacup of Demerara, which was fine;
• 4 teacups of plain flour – I ended up shaking in a bit more because the mixture looked rather gloopy!
• 2 teaspoons of bicarbonate of soda;
• 2 beaten eggs;
• ½ teaspoon of salt.

Method

• Chop dates and walnuts – I went quite small; this was the most tedious part of the operation but, with a good podcast to listen to, the job was soon done;
• place the dates and walnuts in a bowl and add salt, bicarbonate of soda, then boiling water;
• allow to stand for two minutes;
• add sugar, flour and the beaten eggs – stirring thoroughly;
• ‘Will make two cakes or loaves’ – not very precise guidance from the recipe so I got out a selection of baking tins and guessed how far the mixture would go – greasing them with butter and lining with greaseproof paper before pouring in the mixture; these are the sizes I ended up with …

Pip, Squeak and Wilfred!

• ‘Bake in moderate oven for 1 to 1½ hours’ – our fan oven did them in about 45 minutes at 180℃; I checked they were done by poking with a skewer to see if there was any uncooked mixture lurking (thanks for the tip, Mrs B!).

I have to say they were a great success and there is very little left after a week. I shall definitely be making this again.

So, thanks to the Salonika Reunion Association and, especially, Aileen H. Moore (late of QAIMNS (R)) for a super little recipe shared in the ‘Women’s Pages’ of ‘The Mosquito’ over 70 years ago!