I’m having fun with dates: they are so good. With the date cake in fresh memory, I thought of another date sweet that I like: date slice. My local café, Greenshoots (now sadly closed), did a really good coffee date slice which inspired me to try my hand at this confection.
Date slices are delicious and you can easily pretend they’re good for you too.
A look around the internet found Crank’s recipe for date slice. The perfect starting point. I’ve adjusted the recipe to fit one 250 gram bag of dates and use a bit more cooking liquor for the dates. I stirred the dates a lot to make the filling smooth and sticky. It has a good hit of coffee flavour and was rather yummy on its own. The final product feels almost virtuous because of the wholemeal flour and has a satisfyingly rich coffee and date flavour (tip: if you freeze them, the coffee flavour disappears). The orange hit in the crumb is a nice addition.
Make the crumb, soften the dates, assemble and bake. Easy. Delicious.
- 250 grams dates
- 75 ml strong coffee
- 160 grams wholemeal flour
- 70 grams oats
- 55 grams brown sugar
- 110 grams butter
- Grated zest of half an orange
- Pre-heat the oven to 200C (180C fan).
- Put coffee and dates in a saucepan and warm at a low heat until the dates are soft and squidgy.
- Mix the other ingredients together using a food processor or your hands until you have a loose crumble.
- In a 8x5 shape (I didn't have a small tin so made one from aluminium foil. Baking paper will work too.), pour in half of the crumb mixture and press down firmly into an even layer.
- Spoon the dates over the base layer and even out. (This need a little care as the dates are sticky and take the base crumb with them if you lift them off it.)
- Sprinkle the rest of the crumb mixture over the dates and press down firmly.
- Cook for 20 minutes.
- Let cool before cutting.
