Dates and Butter Dessert Bar

When I saw this, I knew I had to make it. I mean, look at all that butter. And dates. Dates are meant to be baked. Oh and also to be pitted and the seed replaced with a whole cashewnut before eating. These are the only two ways dates are meant to be used, really.

I did some adjustments to the quantity of ingredients based on my taste. I also think I under-cooked the bar but that's fine. One can always increase the baking time by 5-10 next time, no reason to hate the recipe for that.

Here's what we need.

1 cup dates, pitted and chopped into small pieces
2 cups all purpose flour / maida
1.5 cups butter at room temperature
¾ cup white sugar
½ cup brown sugar (or just use white sugar again in case you don't have this)
4 eggs
1 cup chopped nuts of your choice (I used walnuts and about 2-3 tablespoon of cashew nuts that I happened to have)
½ teaspoon Salt
¼ teaspoon Baking Powder
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

Here's how to make the bars:

1. Melt butter in a pan over very low heat or in the microwave, stirring occasionally. Set aside.

2. Chop up the dates and nuts and set aside.

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3. Sift flour, salt and baking powder. Add about ¼ cup of this into the chopped dates and nuts mixture and mix (dredge) well to coat the sticky parts of the dates. Set aside.

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4. Mix butter and sugar and beat lightly for 2 mins until well incorporated. Add eggs one at a time and continue beating. Finally add the vanilla extract and mix well.

5. Fold in the flour-salt-baking powder mixture to the above gently until just mixed and no lumps remain. Then add the dredged dates and flour mixture continuing to fold in gently. This will form a thick batter.

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6. Pour into a greased cake or brownie pan and bake in a preheated oven at 350F/180C for 35-40 mins. The original recipe says 30 mins but mine were a bit under-baked so adjust according to your oven.

Cut and serve warm with ice cream for an indulgent treat. I stored mine in the refrigerator for 4 days.

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