Date and nut bars

Last year, I travelled to beautiful Kiawah Island in South Carolina to visit my family and every time we get together my Mum outdoes herself with amazing cooking and baking. We are so spoiled! My grandmother used to make a date & nut bar that was to die for but since I steer clear of flour, I wouldn’t be able to use her original recipe. Mum found this great date & walnut recipe on a fabulous website called Elana’s Pantry. The exact link is here: http://www.elanaspantry.com/date-walnut-bars/

I just made a few modifications because (1) I strongly dislike walnuts…they look like little brains and they taste funny so I swapped them out for delicious pecans and (2) I didn’t have any palm shortening on hand. I never seen it on the shelves here and if About Life doesn’t have it then I assume all of Australia is void of palm shortening. I just substituted coconut oil.

This recipe can be used for breakfast, afternoon tea or evening dessert. It is seriously the perfect all-rounder! So, if you have been invited out to a party this weekend and don’t know what to bring – this is your solution! You don’t need to schedule a cheat day, just be prepared!

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup pecans
  • 10 fresh medjool dates, pitted

Wet Ingredients:

  • 3 eggs
  • 1/4 cup honey
  • 1/4 cup coconut oil
  • 1 tsp. vanilla extract

Dry Ingredients:

  • 1 & 1/2 cups almond flour
  • 1/4 tsp. celtic sea salt
  • 1/4 tsp. baking soda
  • Preheat your oven to 175°C

Method

In a small food processor, blend up the pecans until small (but not into a powder!). Do the pecans first because their oil will coat the inside & blades so the dates don’t gum everything up!

Pit the dates and add them to the mix.

Blend until well mixed and when there are not large chunks of dates left. Set this aside, we’ll need it in a moment!

Whisk up your wet ingredients in a large bowl. You can use a stick wand or a hand whisk for this – both will do the trick but a stick wand will get it smoother. Don’t worry if your coconut oil isn’t completely liquid at this stage!

Combine your dry ingredients in a medium bowl and set aside. You don’t want to mix with your wet ingredients until you are ready because the baking soda will begin to react as soon as it gets wet!

First add your dry ingredients to your wet ingredients in the large bowl. Then add your pecan & date mixture and fold through with a spatula.

Line a 9″ x 9″ tin with baking paper and spread the mix evenly into the corners. I use a spatula to make it as flat as possible but it doesn’t need to be perfect.

Bake for 22-25 minutes or until a knife comes out clean when tested. I remove the edges because they are Mia’s favourite part and then I cut into 16 squares. These do taste good straight out of the oven BUT they are SUPER delicious cold so let them cool & pop them in the fridge!