Date and Banana Loaf

With a wet afternoon ahead of me, and some over-ripe bananas in the kitchen, I was looking for a recipe which I could make using just my storecupboard ingredients. This recipe for Easy Date and Banana Loaf, on the Waitrose website looked promising, and used my favourite storecupboard sweetener - date syrup - which was an added bonus.

Following the recipe exactly didn't quite work out, as I didn't have Medjool dates or enough butter and SR flour, but my substitutes worked well, producing a well-flavoured moist loaf with a firm but not heavy texture. I used cream cheese in place of the missing amount of butter, light spelt flour and some extra baking powder in place of some of the flour, and basic soft dried dates instead of Medjool dates.

Ingredients
100g butter, softened
75g full fat cream cheese, at room temperature
100g SR flour
100g light spelt flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 eggs
3 tablespoons date syrup (plus extra for drizzling)
2 large ripe bananas, mashed roughly
100g chopped soft dried dates
demerara sugar for topping (optional)

Method
Line a 900g (2lb) loaf tin with baking parchment or a pre-formed liner. Pre-heat oven to 160C.
Put all the ingredients except the bananas, dates and demerara sugar into a large bowl and beat until smooth, then beat in the bananas. Finally, fold in the dates.
Transfer the batter to the loaf tin, level the surface and sprinkle over the demerara sugar, if using.
Bake for about 75 minutes, or until a test probe comes out clean.
Cool in the tin for a few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack and drizzle with a little more date syrup.

The resulting loaf was moist enough to eat as a cake, although butter spread on this sort of loaf is always an option worth considering. The subtle spicing enhanced the overall flavour of the cake, but it was the dates which stood out as the strongest flavour.

Date and Apricot Cookies

I didn't intend to bake last weekend, but I had an online discussion with friends about whether a weird sounding recipe that we'd all noticed would actually work. The recipe in question was this one, from former GBBO contestant Tamal Ray, in the Guardian Feast magazine. Not only did the recipe sound strange - so much liquid! - the accompanying picture didn't look particularly attractive either - should a baked cookie still look shiny? As I had all the ingredients to hand, including date syrup, one of my favourite sweeteners, I decided to set my doubts aside and give it a go.

The result was a delicious soft cookie, strongly date flavoured, with nuggets of sweet dried fruit. I can't say the recipe was entirely successful, as the cookie dough was too soft to shape initially, and had to be chilled for 90 minutes before I could roll it into balls. And my cookies didn't look much like the picture in the magazine, either, but for my personal taste, that was an improvement.

Because the dough had been chilled I allowed an extra 3 minutes baking, but otherwise followed the recipe exactly (apart from needing to chill the dough, of course). I didn't have medjool dates, but did have some large soft dates to use instead, and I used the zest of two tangerines instead of an orange - but neither of these changes substantially altered the recipe.

The cookies were quite large - if I make them again I think I would make them a little smaller - and very soft, and both the orange and almond flavours were overwhelmed by the date syrup, but I'm still glad I decided to risk the experiment, and that the recipe worked (with just a little adjustment!).

Date, Apple and Walnut Cake

I bought walnuts for my last bake - Nigella's Emergency Brownies - and I know that they don't keep fresh for long, so decided to use them in this cake too. I added a twist to the traditional British autumnal flavours of dates, apples and walnuts by using date syrup in place of some of the sugar and adding a little rosewater too.

Ingredients
100g softened butter
75g caster sugar
3 tablespoons date syrup
*1 teaspoon rosewater
2 large eggs
150g SR flour
50g chopped soft dates
50g chopped walnuts
1 small eating apple, peeled cored and chopped
a sprinkle of demerara sugar for topping (optional)

*or to taste, depending on the strength of the brand you are using

Method
Preheat oven to 180C (fan 160C) and line a small 450g (1lb) loaf tin. I used a loaf tin liner, but baking parchment can be used too.
Put the butter, sugar, syrup, rosewater, eggs and flour into a large bowl and beat together until the mixture is smooth and light. If the batter seems too thick, add a little milk or water to give a dropping consistency.
Stir in the dates, walnuts and apple pieces.
Transfer the batter to the prepared tin, level the surface and sprinkle on the demerara sugar, if using.
Bake for about 60 minutes, until a test probe comes out clean.
Cool in the tin for a few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Using the date syrup intensified the date flavour, and deepened the colour of the cake crumb, which I was pleased about. I liked the flavour combination of dates, apples and walnuts with rosewater, but it became a summery cake rather than an autumnal one. Probably fitting, as we seem to be having a bit of an Indian summer at the moment, but for a really seasonal cake a little cinnamon or other spice would have been better than the rosewater.

Rye, Apple and Date Syrup Cake

Having acquired a bottle of date syrup, I needed to find a recipe in which to use it. I needed something which used enough syrup to notice the flavour, but not one which used the whole bottle in one go. After a lot of fruitless searching, I went back over the Guardian recipes on Dan Lepard's site and found this recipe for Rye Apple Cake. I'd already tried the recipe once, before I started blogging, so knew it was a tasty cake, and this also made me feel comfortable about adapting the recipe a little to suit my needs.

I used date syrup instead of golden syrup, sunflower oil instead of butter and left out the almonds altogether, replacing those in the cake batter with plain white flour, and just sprinkling demerara sugar on top. This is quite a low fat recipe anyway, producing a loaf which is more like a teabread than a cake, but as the butter is melted with the sugar and syrup, I thought changing it for oil wouldn't alter the recipe too drastically. I left out the ground almonds because FB has a severe peanut allergy and prefers to avoid other nuts as much as possible - large amounts can produce mild allergy symptoms, and allergic reactions can get worse with repeated exposure, so it pays to play it safe from her point of view!

None of the changes appeared to have a detrimental effect on the recipe - the resultant loaf was dark and moist, studded with little pieces of cinnamon-y apple. I'm not sure I could notice the date syrup as a separate flavour, but it combined with the rye and dark sugar to give rich, distinctive but not oversweet flavour. The apple pieces collapsed a little during cooking, leaving small holes above each piece, but this wasn't a huge problem.

Here's my revised recipe, with thanks to Dan Lepard for the original!

Ingredients
1 large eating apple - I used a Cox
1 teaspoon cinnamon
150g rye flour
50g plain white flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
60g sunflower oil
50g date syrup
100g dark muscovado sugar
75mls milk
1 large egg
Demerara sugar for topping

Method
Prepare a 2lb loaf tin and pre-heat the oven to 170C (same temperature for fan ovens).
Peel, core and dice the apple into 1cm cubes or smaller. Toss with the cinnamon to coat the apple pieces.
Mix the two flours and the baking powder in a bowl.
In a large saucepan, gently heat the oil, syrup and sugar, until the sugar is dissolved. Do not bring to boiling point.
Remove from the heat and beat in the milk and egg.
Stir in the flour mix until evenly blended, then fold in the apple pieces.
Transfer the batter to the loaf tin, level the surface, and sprinkle heavily with demerara sugar.
Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until a test probe is clean. Cool in the tin.