Date Cake

My version of a sticky date pudding isn't sticky at all because I skipped the toffee sauce. It's just sort of a regular cake. I based my recipe on Sticky Date Pudding with Toffee Sauce from epicurious.

• 1 3/4 cups packed pitted dates (about 10 ounces)
• 2 cups water
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 c brown sugar
• 3 large eggs

Preheat oven to 375°F. Butter and flour an 8-inch square baking pan (2 inches deep), knocking out excess flour.

Coarsely chop dates and in a 1 1/2- to 2-quart saucepan simmer dates in water, uncovered, 5 minutes. Remove pan from heat and stir in baking soda. (Mixture will foam.) Let mixture stand 20 minutes.

While mixture is standing, combine flour, baking powder, ginger, and salt in a bowl and whisk until well mixed. In a large bowl, beat together butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add flour mixture and mix until until just combined. Add date mixture and with a wooden spoon stir batter until just combined.

Pour batter into baking pan and set pan in a larger baking pan. Add enough hot water to larger pan to reach halfway up sides of smaller pan and bake in middle of oven until a tester comes out clean, 35 minutes. Remove smaller pan from water bath and cool pudding to warm on a rack.

*****

A delicious cake, not too sweet. We ate it with vanilla ice cream, but no toffee sauce (which I'm sure would be delicious, but is just outrageously decadent.) In fact, I think a healthier version of this cake, with applesauce subbing for some of the butter and less sugar, would still be really good.

If I make this again, I'll probably ditch the water bath. It's unwieldy, and I'm not convinced it made a great deal of difference in my cake.

*****

Along with the date cake, we had chipotle black bean stew from Vegan with a Vengeance for dinner. I've made this many times, and it's always delicious and easy to put together. We used a bunch of corn on the cob from our CSA box.