Culture

I cannot take credit for these. Much to everyone’s delight, one of my flatmates has recently taken it upon himself to become a baking king. This is a significant turn around from previous years where his aversion to following recipes led to some strange kitchen concoctions. Most memorably; pasta à la banana. But he’s a changed man! And while his decision to embrace recipes and instruction-following in general makes for somewhat less entertaining meal times, it does mean that our house often smells like cake and all things delicious and sugary. I’m not convinced the phase will last, so who knows, we could be eating fruit pasta again in no time?
 
These date cups are a modification of a recipe in the Edmonds Cookery Book. If your flat is anything like ours, I’m sure you have at least three copies of this seminal text. Because convention is not something my flatmate enjoys or aspires to, and because he couldn’t find a baking tin, he decided instead to use a muffin tray to make wee pastry cups filled with caramelly datey goodness. Talk about Kiwi ingenuity. If you like dates, and you like butter (who doesn’t like butter?), you will love these. They remind me of those delicious Christmas mince pies my Granny makes every year, but with dates.
 
Filling
1 cup of chopped dates
1 cup of water
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp of butter
2 tsp cocoa
Quarter tsp vanilla essence
 
Base
125 grams of butter
Half a cup of sugar
1 egg
1 and three quarter cups of plain flour
1 tsp of baking powder
 
Filling
Put dates in a saucepan. Add water, sugar, butter and cocoa. Cook gently over a low heat until a paste-like consistency is reached. Add vanilla and cool.
 
Base
Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg and beat well. Sift flour and baking powder together. Mix into creamed mixture. Press out the mixture into muffin tins. Place the date filling inside the cups and bake at 180 degrees for 30 mins.
 
If you prefer to make date fingers, the recipe says you should roll out half the base mixture into a 20cm square baking tin. Spread out the date filling. Roll out the rest of the base mix on a piece of waxed paper and place on top of the dates. Bake for half an hour and then slice it up into bits.
Edmonds also helpfully suggests that for those not enthusiastic about dates, other dried fruits such as apricots or sultanas could work in their place.