Healthy date and walnut loaf
Date and walnut cake is one of the most delicious and healthful sweet treats in the world. Hailed for its nutritional value, date and walnut cake is a perennial favorite breakfast or snack that will leave you feeling energized.
Healthy date and walnut loaf is an appealing and nutritious snack for children to take to school, and it is so sweet that everyone likes it. This cake is sweetened with dates, which means it doesn’t require as much sugar as other cakes.
The other good news is that this recipe yields a low-fat cake, as it calls for only half a cup of liquid oil.
I serve this cake with toffee sauce. I recommend the toffee sauce, as it makes the taste of the cake more enjoyable and its appearance more tempting. Of course, if you would prefer that your cake be less sweet, you may wish to pass on the toffee sauce.
What pans can be replaced with the loaf pan for baking date and walnut cakes?
I make this cake in a loaf pan. One of the reasons is that I love loaf cakes. Another reason is that loaf cakes bake more quickly than cakes baked in round cake pans.
If you do not have loaf pans, you can use a Bundt cake pan. The heavy, dense nature of the date cake makes it easier to cook in this type of pan.
Healthy date and walnut loaf
Servings: 6 people
Ingredients
- 300 g Pitted dates about 35 medium grains
- ¾ cup brown or white sugar
- 1 cup boiling water
- 2 cup Flour
- 3 Eggs
- ½ cup Oil
- 1 cup chopped walnuts
- 1 tbsp Cocoa powder
- 1 tsp Baking powder
- some Vanilla essence
Toffee sauce:
- 90 g Toffee candy
- 3 tbsp Cream
- Pistachio, coconut and walnut powder (for decoration) optional
Instructions
- Grease the cake pan and line the bottom with parchment paper. You can also use tahini to grease this cake; For this recipe, you need an 8" x 4" loaf pan, or a bundt cake pan of 9" or 9.5" ( 23 or 25 cm).
- Preheat the oven to 180 C (electric ovens 160 C and toaster to 140 - 150 C)
- Prepare the dates: Cover the pitted dates with 1 cup of boiling water. Allow to soften for 10–20 minutes.
- After the mixture has cooled, merge it using a mixer or knead with your hands until the dates are completely soft. Then sift it through a sieve to obtain a clean, even puree. Be sure not to neglect this step! If the skins of the dates are not removed by passing them through a sieve, they will remain in the cake and affect its texture.
- Add about 1 tablespoon of the flour--which you measured before-- to the walnuts and stir to coat them well.
- Sift together flour, baking powder, and cocoa powder.
- Combine the eggs, sugar, and vanilla and beat the mixture with a mixer for 4 to 5 minutes, until doubled in volume.
- Reduce the speed of the mixer and add the liquid oil.
- Add the date puree. Stir until combined (do not over-stir). Turn off the mixer as soon as the ingredients are incorporated.
- Add dry ingredients including flour, baking powder, and cocoa powder. Mix with a wooden spoon or whisk.
- Finally, add the flour-coated walnuts.
- Pour the batter into the pan and put them into the preheated oven for 50 to 60 minutes. Do the cooking test after 40 minutes. Total cooking time varies depending on oven temperature.
- Bon appetite!
How to prepare toffee sauce
- Combine the toffee chocolate with breakfast cream. Place over a bain-marie, in microwave, or on a low heat flame until the chocolate is completely melted and a thin sauce is obtained.
- If you put the chocolates directly over a low heat flame, stir it constantly until melted.
- Once you’ve made the sauce, allow it to cool, and pour the icing on top of the cake. Or, if you don’t want icing, pour the sauce in thin lines using a utensil like a piping bag or spoon.
Important tips:
- If the chocolate is too stiff, add 3-4 teaspoons of water and stir.
- This cake turns out great with any kind of date, but the best dates are the soft ones. If your dates are hard and dry, you’ll need to chop them into smaller pieces and soak them in boiling water for a few minutes until it becomes soft.
- If you use white sugar instead of brown sugar, do not add an entire 3/4 cup of sugar. White sugar next to dates can make the cake too sweet, so you will need less to offset the sweetness of the dates.
- depending on your preference, you can change the amount of sugar in this recipe, and reduce it. Eggs beaten without sugar will still whip up to a nice, soft peak.
- This is one of the desserts where you can eliminate sugar completely and have a healthy date loaf with no sugar. Replacing white sugar with grape molasses or date molasses is an alternative that makes a diabetic-friendly treat.
- It is true, however, that cakes made with date molasses or grape molasses do not have the same sweetness as cakes made with sugar. Instead, they have a distinctive, pleasing flavor that is their own alone. It’s a dessert with a unique and special sweet taste, not similar to sugar, and gives you the satisfaction of knowing you’ve eaten something healthy as well as tasty. I suggest you try the Date molasses cake recipe.
- If you don’t coat the walnuts with flour, they will sink to the bottom of the cake. Coating them with flour will help distribute them all over the cake. To do this, don’t put extra flour on the walnuts; just sprinkle 2 tablespoons of the same 2 cups of flour on them.
- You may choose to remove the cocoa powder. If you do so, you will not need to change the amount of flour in the recipe.
- Once the cake is baked, let it cool completely inside the pan and then remove it from the pan.
How to decorate date and walnut loaf?
Decorate this cake to your whimsy and creativity. My suggestions are as follows:
- Toffee sauce
- Chopped walnuts
- Coconut powder
- Pistachio powder
How many minutes should the oven be turned on before using?
You should preheat the oven for 15 minutes before placing the cake. If your oven is slow and the heat is low, turn it on 20 to 30 minutes before.
Key points about measuring flour:
- Do not put the measure directly in the flour bag; take a spoonful of flour, and pour it into the measure. Do not press the flours together.
- Sift the flour prior to measuring it, because the flour’s volume will change once it is sifted.
- The butter-based cake will harden if left in the refrigerator. However, this cake will stay soft even after refrigeration because it uses oil instead of butter.
Conclusion
This recipe is for a healthy date and walnut loaf. The soft, delicate texture of this cake is excellent. Chewing on the pieces of walnut, mixed into the plump texture of dates is an experience you won’t soon forget.
If you wish, add a dash of cinnamon to your recipe, and bask in the warm, spicy aroma of freshly baked cake.
You can reduce the amount of sugar, and beat the egg alone to get volume. In any case, this cake will have a great texture. Be sure to try this recipe and share the result with us in the comments.
