Dates & Walnut Cake
{Egg less}

Go nuts this holiday season with this delicious dates and walnut cake. A classic comfort cake that is best enjoyed during winters!

One of the reason I love baking other than eating is the beautiful aroma that it fills my kitchen. Today I wanted to make something easy and made this rich but healthy cake. Dates and walnut are a match made in heaven! They compliment each other very well and I enjoy this cake with a warm glass of milk to dunk in, or just a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

There’s something about the richness and soft chewy sweetness of dates that is complimented by the slightly bitter and crisp texture of walnuts. This cake is egg less and can be made with just a few basic ingredients. If you are using dates with seeds, then the dates need to be soaked in milk for few hours to help in removing the seeds.

This is made with less sugar than a traditional cake as dates add natural sweetness. Also if you want you can add honey instead of sugar to make it more healthy. And for crunch you can add pretty much any kind of nuts you like, almonds, pecans, cashew but try to still add some walnut as the salty flavor of them goes very well with dates. Because of the wheat flour this cake is dense and may not be as soft as the regular cake that we make, but trust me it just enhances flavor of dates.

Ingredients:

Wheat flour – 1 cup
All purpose flour- 1/2 cup
Pitted Dates – 1 cup
Walnuts – 1 cup, coarsely chopped
Oil – 1/2 cup
Milk – 1 cup
Sugar – 1/4 cup (You can also use honey if you wish)
Baking Powder – 1 tsp
Baking Soda – 1 tsp
Cinnamon Powder – 1 tsp (Optional)
Vanilla essence- 1 tsp (Optional)

Method:-

Soak the dates in warm milk for 3 to 4 hours. Remove the seeds if not using seedless.

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees.

In a blender add dates, sugar and blend them to a smooth paste along with the milk in which it was soaked in.

Sieve flour with baking soda and powder in a mixing bowl. Add the dates paste, vanilla essence, oil, chopped walnuts that are tossed in flour. If the batter looks sticky don’t worry, just add some milk and mix evenly.

Pour in the cake mixture in your baking tray and sprinkle some more nuts and dates and bake for about 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Let the cake cool down before cutting it. The colour of the cake varies from the quality of dates, so don’t panic if you don’t get colour as mine.

Serve it warm or cold with tea/coffee. It tastes even better the next day, so if you have any leftovers store he cake in an airtight container.