Date-Pine Nut Cake with Fennel

As always, I find Mahanandi
a beautiful blog to visit. I was recently struck by this recipe, for a Date-Walnut cake. Firstly, when I went to make it I realized that I did not have any walnuts, then I played around with the flavorings but overall the results were really good and frankly this was quite wholesome for a cake.

Date-PineNut Cake with Fennel

Makes one loaf

Ingredients

1 cup wholewheat flour

1 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp fennel seeds

1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1 cup pinenuts

1 cup chopped dates

1/2 cup honey

1/2 cup dark brown sugar

1/4 cup soft butter

1 egg

1 cup buttermilk

Method of Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a loaf pan and set aside.

2. Mix the flours, baking soda, baking powder, fennel seeds, pumpkin pie spice in a large bowl.

3. Stir in the pinenuts.

4. Mix the dates in the honey.

5. Beat the sugar, butter and egg till smooth.

6. Add in the dates with the honey.

7. Add to the dry ingredients in batches with the buttermilk. Blend till smooth.

8. Pour into a pan and cook for 45 minutes till well browned. Serve hot with tea.

Interestingly enough, I made this rather late at night and was not sure about having tea at that time. Someone had sent me a gift of something called white tea that I had never had before. This happens to be a rather mild tea that needs to be steeped in hot but not boiling water. It is also much lower in caffiene than regular black tea so it makes a good late evening drink when you are craving tea at night.

Almond - Pine Nut Cookies

Some people are just clumsier than other at certain things, one of the things that I do not do well is pretty neat baked goods. I also stay away from the sugar because of the little ones, but this time of the year is an exception. In terms of making cookies, I find bar cookies to be maneagable since, you can control the shapes somewhat. This is what I thought I would send Habeas Brulee who is doing the Sugar High Friday event.

One of my favorite bar cookie books are A to Z Bar Cookies by Marie Simmons.

I tried these pine nut, almond cookies the other day, they are eggless and the results were satifying especially with my favorite cup of hot orange pekoe tea.

Almond Pine Nut Cookies

Ingredients

1 stick salted butter

3/4 cup grated jaggery

3/4 cup unbleached white flour

3/4 cup semolina

3/4 cup blanched almonds

1/2 cup half and half

3/4 cups pine nuts

For the topping

1/4 cup pine nuts

1/2 cup stawberry or apricot jam

1/2 cup powdered sugar

Method of Preparation

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. With a hand mixer, mix in the jaggery and butter till well mixed.

3. Sift the flour and semolina onto this mixture and mix well.

4. Make a paste with the almonds and half and half and mix into the batter.

5. Fold in the pine-nuts.

6. Grease a rectangular baking pan and pour the batter onto the pan and even out.

7. Bake for 30 minutes.

8. Let this cool for 10 minutes and invert onto a flat surface.

9. Gently toast the remaining nuts till lightly browned.

10. Heat the jam for 5 minutes, cool and strain.

11. With a brush brush this evenly onto the cookie bar.

12. Sift the powdered sugar onto the jammed suface.

13. Scatter the toasted pine nuts, cut into bars and serve.