I liked one of my snaps taken recently. I thought it was one of my best ever snaps. I felt happy every time I saw the picture and was pretty impressed with myself ;). I was waiting eagerly to show that snap to my amma. I usually send her the snaps when she is online and we see it together. That way I dont miss her instant reactions after seeing the snap. Other day she came online and I showed her the snaps. I was expecting a plethora of adjectives like “lovely, pretty, beautiful” etc; hhmm I'm just exaggerating, I only expected words like nice, good :). But her response was different…its like “ohh ee photo atra sheriyayilla” (this snap hasn't come out well or something to that effect). Though I wasn't ready to accept it, I made peace with it later on. I realised that she didn't like my new hair cut and hence the photo too.
The reason I said that here is because I loved this dates cake. I think this is one of the best cake that I've ever baked/eaten. Now, if you like dates, I surely want you to try this. And I will be sad if I hear that you dont like it, but it's ok. I will try to make peace with that too :) After all each person's taste is different right? But, please give it a try, I'm sure you will like it too. If you like it, please don't forget to send me a mail “full of adjectives” ;).
Here is the recipe:
Recipe source: The Australian Women's Weekly, Cooking Class Cakes.
Ingredients
- 185 gms Butter (chopped)
- 1 cup Milk (250 ml)
- 3/4 cup Brown sugar (150gm, firmly packed)
- 1 cup Deseeded dried dates (145 gm, coarsely chopped)
- 1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of soda
- 1.5 cups Self-raising flour (225 gm, refer notes for substitution)
- 1/2 cup Plain flour ( 75 gm)
- 2 Eggs (beaten lightly)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180 C, 10 mins before baking.Prepare a deep 20 cm (8 inch) round cake tin.
- Combine butter, milk, brown sugar and dates in large saucepan. Using wooden spoon, stir over heat until butter melts. Bring to a boil; remove from heat, stir in soda bicarbonate. Cool for 10 minutes. Quickly stir in flours & eggs. Spoon mixture into prepared pan.
- Bake cake in the preheated oven for about 40 minutes. Turn cake onto wire rack to cool.
Notes
Butter conversion: Check out here for butter conversion.
Hi Maria, could this cake be steamed to make date pudding ?
Hi Maria, could I steam this cake to serve with butterscotch sauce?
I tried it yesterday. It came out very well. Thanks for the recipe.
You are welcome Charu :) Glad you liked it.
Thanks for the comment!
Cheers
Maria
Hi maria,
Happy new year and thank you for this boiled dates recipe, it did tasted very good. I just got inspired to bake after seeing ur post. As I mentioned before I had tried many of ur recipe. I sleep everyday seeing ur posts thinking what to cook for next day. So far all I have tried has turned out very good.
My chef husband and two lil twin toddlers had liked it. I did not get time to fool with my dslr and capture good pics, I did take a pic from my phone to send u a email as a token of thanks. I have also tried ur vanilla cup cake but didn’t have time to do frosting so, managed with ice cream topping.
Thanks again. Good job, keep going.. maria rocks..
Hi Sajitha,
Thank you so much :) I’m so happy that you tried out this recipe, since it’s one of my fav cakes.
So good to know that you go to sleep thinking about MM :)
Thanks for sharing the pics here, I’ve added it on MM FB page.
Cheers
Maria
HI Maria,
Greeting to you
I saw your Boiled Date Cake.and i am planning to make. But in the recipe you mentioned to quickly add flours and eggs.My doubt is do i have to put the flours and eggs together or first beat the eggs separately, then add the mixture and then little by little add flour and mix with hand mixture. Which way i have to do? Also i don’t have bunt pan, so can i use noraml square pan? For making this cake do i have to use hand mixer for mixing or spoon mixing is enough. Please guide me.
Hi Jeena,
As i’ve mentioned in the recipe, the eggs are beaten lightly, then it’s added along with the flour. If it had to be done separately, I’d have mentioned it like that. Please follow as mentioned in the recipe.
You can bake it in a normal pan. You can use a hand whisk or wooden spoon for mixing.
Hope it’s clear now..
Cheers
Maria
can we substititute baking soda with baking powder
Hi Mary,
Please check out the following links:
http://chemistry.about.com/od/foodchemistryfaqs/f/powdersoda.htm
http://www.ochef.com/364.htm
Hope it helps..
Cheers
Maria
i made moist chocolate cake yummmyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy thank you so much i am a beginer in baking but your recipies give me a confidence to try
Thanks Mary :) I’m really thrilled to know that this site motivates you to try baking. Keep going dear..
Cheers
Maria
I tried chicken biriyani,shrimp fry and cheemen biriyani for my children ,it’s sooo yummyyyyy… thank you so much for the recepies.May god bless you and your family.
Mrs.mathews, banglore
Thank you Mrs. Mathews for your wishes and also for the comment :)
Nice to know that those dishes were enjoyed by your family.
Cheers
Maria
tried this one n loved this cake… thanks for posting!
Thanks Ninu :) Great to know that you liked it.
Cheers
Maria
hii maria
 i amde this cake & it came out well..from which site ur getting this conversion from cups to gms
Hi Gayathri,
Thank you so much dear. I also love this cake very much :) I get the conversion table from one of the baking books of Australian Women’s Weekly.
Cheers
Maria
Dear Sylvia
Thanks a lot dear for the wonderful comment :)
I’m sorry about the delayed reply. I was on vacation & hence the delay.
Substituting jaggery is a good idea. Did you use melted jaggery or grated it? I’m so glad that your little one liked it :)
Btw, butter cake is one of our fav’s too..
Thanks for trying out the recipes and also for taking time to post a comment here. Appreciate it very much.
Best wishes!
Cheers
Maria
Hi Maria,
That was a wonderful recipe. I substituted the brown sugar with jaggery and my normally picky toddler gobbled her share.
I tried your butter cake first and it was lovely. I made it for her but she refused to eat that!!?? She just had a gay time singing Happy Birthday to herself & cutting the cake. (which she does countless times a year btw) I had about half that cake by myself and the rest I shared among my family.
Your carrot halwa was very good as well. I used 4.5% milk and it was a bit rich… I will make it next time with a lower fat milk as you have.
Thanks for all the great recipes and your write-ups.
Sylvia.
Divs – tell me about it and yes it was one of my orkut profile pic ;)
Ann – did you try this? Waiting to hear from you. Btw, I was referring to my snap :)
Tinakutty – thank you & no probs dear :)
Swathi – thanks dear and pls do try it.
Parita – thank you :)
Simi – thanks dear and thanks to the baking fairy too :) Hope you will like it.
Yummy Yummy………I have looking for a good date cake recipe and Vola the baking fairy lead me to u :)
Gorgeous pics!!
Maria,
Cake nannayitundu. Try cheyithu nokkamanam
Hi da kurachu busy arunnu sooo ippozha ee cute cake kandathu…Looks beautiful and tempting…
It looks great…but am deadly waiting for carrot halwa recipe..please mariaechi….post it na…
Am waiting…
Till then takecare…
Happy cooking :)
Nasreen sweetie,
Please give me sometime…I will try to post it sometime soon :) will def mail you once its posted.
Cheers
Maria
@Maria,
I was trying to follow your recipe but not 100% sure of directions. After you melt butter do you add the dates milk and sugar to the pot and boil that? Do you let it cool before you add the baking soda and flour?
HI Dee,
As I’ve mentioned in the recipe, all those ingredients (butter, milk, sugar & dates) are combined together in the saucepan and cooked till the butter melts. Baking soda is added, to this mixture, soon after taking it from the stove and it is cooled for 10 mins and then the flour & eggs is added.
Hope its clear now..
Cheers
Maria
 Hi Maria
I just read and then re-read the above recipe and it says “Combine number 1 ingredients in large saucepan. using wooden spoon, stir over heat until butter melts. Bring to a boil; remove from heat, stir
in soda bicarbona ..” so maybe its a typo which would read number 1 to 4 ingreds” which is why we got confused. But I see you have corrected by commenting, maybe the recipe needs this input
Will try and see how it turns out
Yum, I have a box of dates fresh from Doha, and I was wondering how to put them to good use! Just in Time – your recipe arrived. P.S. Is this the same snap that you are referring to in the post? That is a very cute bundt tin BTW that this cake was baked in…
hi maria!!
is it seeded or deseeded dates??
Hi Tara,
Its deseeded dates. Thanks for pointing it out :)
Cheers
Maria
Haha..Mothers are so straightforward sometimes..:):).If you are mentioning the photo which was your profile pic on Orkut a while back,then I must say-you really looked great:):)
Dates cake is one of my first ever baked cake from aayisrecipes,an eggless one.Your recipe sounds nice too..and I love the way it looks..with such a lovely colour.. wish I had a bundt pan too..sigh!!!