Date and Walnut Teacake

Found some leftovers dates in the pantry, look up a recipe that can utilise the dates rather than chucked it out in the bin, came across this great simple and delicoius teacake. The recipe originally called for dates and walnuts since I was lazy to roast the walnuts , i just omitted the whole nut thingy. The batter is a bit on the thick side and I was worried that the cake won't rise, the texture is like quick bread type of loaf. make sure you chopped the dates into pieces or you'll end up which hugh chuncks of dates in your cakes ( that is what you get when you bake in the middle of the night !). This cake can be bake in a 21cm loaf/oblong pan, I just used a 7 inch round cake pan and put some of the extra into muffin case and bake them (this I iced with buttercream frosting and took to office). Somewhat my impression that the cake needs a bit more liquid, perhaps later on I would add extra milk. This cake is not too sweet since it only uses brown sugar and honey but quite moist. There's a hint of spiceness from the nutmeg use or you can substitute with cinnamon perhaps. Taken from CAKES (periplus-step by step)

Date and Walnut Teacake

Ingredients

125g butter / margarine

1/2 cup honey

1/4 cup soft brown sugar

3 tbs milk

11/2 finely chopped dates

1 tsp soda bicarbonate

2 cups plain flour

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg (or cinnanmon?)

1 cup chopped walnuts

2 egs lightly beaten.

1. Preheat oven to 180 celcius. Brush with oil and line a loaf tin.

2.Combine butter , honey , brown sugar and milk in a thick bottom pan and stir over low heat until butter has melted and sugas disoolved. Add dates and soda combiend and set aside to cool.

3.Sift flour and nutmeg . Add walnut. Create a well in the center.

4. Add butter mixture and eggs and stir well but not overbeat. Pour mixture evenly into prepared pan. Bake for 50 to an hour or until skewer comes out clean when inserted into center of the cake.

5. Leave in the pan for 10 minutes before turning onto wire.