good cooking every day / DELICIOUS BITES

2 Mar 2025

If you know me, then you know I'm a fan of simple fruit, citrus or nut forward cakes. You can also add dates to that list of cake flavours, so when I saw this easy spiced date loaf in Julia Busuttil Nishimura's book, Good Cooking Everyday, I bookmarked it straight away.

It's one of those cakes you can make with store cupboard ingredients and although I did splash out and buy some medjool dates, I don't think that was necessary. Regular dried dates would work just as well.

I did change the method a little but otherwise this is a pretty faithful version of Julia's recipe just reduced to fit into my smaller tin. Here's the recipe for you which makes a small, 18 x 10 cm loaf cake. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C. If you'd like to make a larger loaf cake, then just increase all the ingredients by a third. The bake time will stay the same.

Spiced Date Loaf

Ingredients

100g pitted dates
heaped ¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
60mls boiling water
165g self-raising flour
1 teaspoon ground ginger
heaped ¼ tsp ground cinnamon
pinch ground nutmeg
½ tsp vanilla extract

60mls light-flavoured extra-virgin olive oil or neutral vegetable oil
2 eggs
65g brown sugar
40 g caster sugar
pinch of sea salt
60mls buttermilk or full fat yoghurt

To serve
salted butter

Method
Preheat the oven to 190°C conventional. Grease and line the base and sides of a 18 x 10 cm loaf tin with baking paper.

Place the dates and bicarbonate of soda in a heatproof bowl and cover with the boiling water. Sit for 10 minutes, then mash well with a fork.

Sift the dry ingredients into a small bowl and add the vanilla extract to the oil and set aside.

Place the eggs, sugars and salt into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat on a high speed for 4-5 minutes or until pale and voluminous. Reduce the speed to medium and stream in the oil until combined.

Reduce the speed to low and add the dry ingredients in thirds alternating with the buttermilk and mashed dates and mix until just combined.

Scrape the batter into the tin and bake for 45-50 minutes or until a skewer comes out almost clean when tested (a few crumbs are fine). Cool in the tin for 15 minutes, then transfer the cake to a wire rack to cool completely.

To serve, slice the loaf then slather with salted butter.

I shared this cake with the neighbours and kept a good slab of cake for myself. I enjoyed my slices of cake, served just as you see it, slathered with butter, and accompanied by a nice strong cup of tea.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian

almond crumble cake with nectarines and blackberries

17 Feb 2025

Stone fruit are at their best at the moment, so I'm taking every opportunity to bake with them while they're in season. I recently took out a copy of Julia Busuttil Nishimura's Good Cooking Everyday from my local library and bookmarked most of the cake recipes.

I was going to make an almond crumble cake with peaches and blackberries as per the recipe, but my peaches were a bit too firm. I had 2 almost too ripe necatrines in the fruit bowl so used them instead. I really needed a third nectarine to properly cover the cake batter so I threw in a few more blackberries than the original recipe suggested.

The cake came out of the oven smelling so delicious but I did wait until it was cool before tucking into my slice. It was amazing and when I shared the rest of the cake with my enighbours, they expressed the same opinion.

Here's the recipe for you which makes a 17cm square or round cake. Just double the quantities to make a 30cm x 20cm cake. The cook time will stay the same. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Almond crumble cake with nectarine & blackberry

Almond crumble
30g flaked almonds
30g plain flour
25g caster sugar
20g almond meal
pinch of sea salt
30g cold unsalted butter, cubed

Fruit filling
3 yellow nectarines or 2 peaches
10 g caster sugar
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon plain flour
75g blackberries, halved

Cake
100g unsalted butter, softened
75g caster sugar
100g brown sugar
½ tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
50g almond meal
100g self-raising flour
40 ml full-cream milk
pinch of sea salt
pure icing sugar, to dust

Method
Preheat the oven to 190°C conventional. Grease and line a 17 x 17 cm square or round baking tin with baking paper.

Crumble
Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl. Rub the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture is damp and holds together in a crumbly manner. Set aside.

Fruit filling
Halve the nectarines, remove the seeds and cut into wedges. If using peaches, make a cross in the base of each peach, blanch in boiling water for 1-2 minutes, then transfer to an ice bath. Peel off the skin and discard before halving the fruit and cutting into wedges. Place the fruit in a bowl with the caster sugar, cinnamon and flour. Toss to coat and set aside.

Cake
Cream the butter, sugars and vanilla extract in the large bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment on a medium-high speed for 6-8 minutes or until pale and very fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down the bowl with a spatula as needed. Reduce the speed to low and add the almond meal, flour, and salt in thirds, alternating with the milk and mix until just combined.

Spoon the batter into the tin and smooth the surface with the spatula. Arrange the fruit evenly on the batter, then top with the blackberries. Scatter on the almond crumble and bake for 45-50 minutes or until the top is golden brown and springs back when touched.

Cool in the tin for 15 minutes, then transfer the cake to a wire rack to cool completely. Dust with icing sugar and serve.

It was delicious the first day of eating and equally as delicious 3 or 4 days later.