Middle Eastern influences

Dates seem to fall into the Marmite category - you either love them or hate them, few people can take or leave them.
OH is particularly fond of them and we can always rely on his mother to keep us stocked up with these sticky delights.

They are great for snacking on, although I am not so thrilled that sticky fingerprints remain very much a thing in our house, despite there no longer being any toddlers around.

But they offer so much more potential than simply a biscuit substitute.
Much loved throughout the Middle East, dates find their way into a wide range of sweet and savoury dishes and, closer to home, are an integral part of a true sticky toffee pudding.

This tart brings together a number of Middle Eastern flavours and textures into a tart (galette?) which can either be eaten as a dessert, with Greek yogurt, or simply with a cup of strong, black coffee.

Pastry
150g self raising flour

100g cold butter

50g icing sugar

1 egg

Milk

Chop the butter into small cubes and add to the flour and icing sugar.  You can either pulse this mixture in a food processor or rub the butter into the flour by hand until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.
Add the egg and just enough milk to bring the whole mix together into a stiff dough.
Wrap in cling film and refrigerate for an hour

200g chopped dates, soaked for 20 minutes in just enough boiling water to cover and then blitzed to a coarse purée

100g chopped walnuts

2 level dessertspoons tahini

2 level dessertspoons set honey

Splash of orange blossom water

2 tsp sesame seeds

A little melted butter

Sugar  

Pre-heat the oven to 180ºC

In a large mixing bowl, thoroughly combine the date purée, walnuts, tahini, honey and orange blossom water.

Remove the pastry from the fridge and roll out into a circle approximately 32 cm in diameter.

Lay the pastry onto a baking tray, if you are using one of ours, you will not need to grease it.

Use the 12" serving and baking tray, as shown below, one of the griddle plates or the heavy duty baking sheet we designed with Val Stones, star of the Great British Bake Off 2016.

And make a special note - every time we sell one of these baking sheets, we will donate £2 to the MS Society, Val's designated charity.

Spread the date filling over the pastry to within 2.5cm from the outer edge.

Fold in the outer edge of the pastry, but leave some of the filling exposed.

Bake in the oven for around 20 minutes.

Remove from the oven and sprinkle the sesame seeds over the exposed filling. Brush the pastry with melted butter and scatter on a generous sprinkling of caster sugar.

Return to the oven for another 10 minutes.

Serve at room temperature.

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