GREEN GODDESS

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DATE DANDIES

Normally I keep my pantry pretty well stocked so when I come to test the recipe for this column, I’ll find most of the ingredients on hand. This week, however, I was caught short – not enough brown sugar or walnuts and no dates or regular white sugar to be found, as stipulated in the ingredients. However, I substituted apricots for dates, complemented the brown sugar with some raw sugar, bulked up my meagre walnut supply with Brazil nuts and used caster sugar. And the result was an instant hit. This recipe is from the GHB Recipe Book (GHB was a grocery chain.)

120g butter

90g sugar

1 egg, beaten

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup flour, sifted

1 tsp baking powder, sifted

2 tbsp cocoa, sifted

Pinch of salt ½ cup coconut

½ cup chopped dates

2 tbsp chopped walnuts

FOR THE ICING

60ml milk

1 cup brown sugar

3 tbsp cocoa

1 tbsp butter

1 Cream the butter and sugar, then stir in the beaten egg and vanilla.

2 Stir in the flour, baking powder, cocoa and salt. Then add the coconut, dates and walnuts.

3 Spread in a sponge tin.

Bake at 180 ºc for 20 minutes, then leave to cool.

TO MAKE THE ICING

1 Combine all the ingredients over heat and bring to the boil.

2 Simmer for 4 minutes, then beat briskly for four minutes. It may not thicken, but will set nicely on the cake.

3 Spread on the cake when it has cooled.

4 Cut the iced cake into squares.