This date bread was a standby for our Thanksgivings. It's one of the Italian bread recipes my Aunti Rose made every year. I loved it because she would serve it with dinner and for me it felt like I was having dessert during dinner time.
Dates are a standby in many Italian dessert recipes. My mom loved to cook with them - mainly because she was a health food freak and dates made her feel like she added an extra dose of earthiness to our growing bodies.
I thought EVERY family ate date bread. It wasn't until I was an adult that I realized it was more of a culture thing and a family tradition.
The easy thing about this bread is - NO yeast. Not that yeast is a bad thing. It just makes this a quicker fix. AND the other easy thing - ONE bowl. I love it when dishes and clean up are quick.
I answered a couple of questions in the section below.
Thanks for stopping by and enjoy your baking ~
* 1 cup butter
* 1 cup of sugar
* 1 1/2 cup of chopped dates
* 1 cup of boiling water
* 1 1/2 cup of walnuts or almonds chopped
* 2 cups of flour, sifted
* 1 tsp of baking soda
* 1 egg beaten
* Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
* Pour boiling water over the dates and let stand.
* Cream the butter and sugar until light, then add egg and beat again.
* Add the nuts.
* Pour in the dates AND the water. Beat well.
* Add the flour and baking soda.
* Pour into a loaf pan. (A bigger loaf pan!)
* Bake for
Nope. Never. Well at least not in this recipe. The butter is a primary flavoring ingredient. Notice there is no added cinnamon, nutmeg or ginger etc.
Not! I think MOST chopped pre-sweetened dates have very little flavor. They have been sitting in a sugar and dried for heaven knows how long.
Always go for an ingredient that is closest to it's natural flavor - or the way it grew. (Ugh, I sound like my mom!) So if you have to buy whole dates and chop - then do it! The flavor is worth it.
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