Thursday baking: spiced date cake

As we bake our way through A Treasury of New Zealand Baking

This dense, spicy cake is almost like sticky date pudding but with cream cheese icing instead of toffee sauce. I didn't have much mixed spice so added some extra cinnamon, ginger and cloves. I was also short on caster sugar so used a mix of caster and brown sugars. A dusting of icing sugar or (as suggested in the recipe) lemon icing would make a lighter alternative to cream cheese icing.

I'd make this cake again, but probably not until we've got through some of the other date recipes in the book. A Treasury of New Zealand Baking seems to have more than it's fair share of recipes featuring dates, including two cakes quite similar to this spiced date cake.

The recipe says the un-iced cake will keep for 4 days in an air-tight container but as I iced the whole thing so it needed to be eaten within a couple of days. I made it on Sunday and took the rest into work for morning tea on Monday. There was already an enormous carrot cake in honour of a birthday so I put the date cake in the fridge for morning tea the following day. When I opened the fridge the next morning there was one lonely slice left on the plate! I hope whoever ate it enjoyed it!


Spiced date cake - Catherine Bell (Week 13)

250g pitted dates, roughly chopped
1 tsp baking soda
125ml boiling water
110g butter
110g caster sugar
finely grated zest of 1 lemon
1 egg
150g flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp mixed spice

icing
50g cream cheese
50g butter
100g icing sugar
finely grated zest of 1/2 lemon

Place dates and baking soda in a bowl and pour over boiling water, soak for 30 minutes and cool.

Cream butter, sugar and lemon zest in a food processor until pale. Add egg and beat well.

Combine flour, baking powder and mixed spice and tip them into a food processor, with the dates & liquid and pulse until just combined.

Pour into greased & lined 20cm cake tin and bake for about 45 minutes (or until cake is golden and a skewer inserted into centre of cake comes out clean. Cool in tin for 5 minutes and then turn out onto cooling rack.

To make icing, beat all ingredients until white and fluffy. Spread icing over cooled cake and dust with cinnamon.