A surfeit of dates

 It's that time of year, isn't it? When we buy dates, nuts, satsumas and Quality Street, regardless of whether anyone in the house likes them or not.

At least one person in the Netherton household will eat and enjoy at least one of the above, so none of it goes to waste.

That being said, we find ourselves with a surfeit of dates (don't ask!).

Inevitably there has been a sticky toffee pudding, with a generous studding of dates, there have been dates stuffed with marzipan to enjoy with coffee, dates stuffed with ricotta, orange zest and thyme, aubergine with saffron, black cardamom and date butter from Diana Henry's From The Oven To The Table

But then I was reading about treacle tarts - if you slip down that rabbit hole on Google you could be lost for days - and an idea took shape.

Treacle tart with dates and nuts.

Start with a basic shortcrust pastry using 110g plain flour to 55g fat (I used butter) with the zest of an orange and water to bind.

Roll out the pastry and line a greased 8½" cake tin (pictured) for a deep pie or a 10" pie dish

Chill the pie case while you make the filling.

100g dates, chopped and soaked for an hour in the juice of the orange you zested for the pastry (waste not, want not)

50g chopped nuts

45g black treacle

120g golden syrup

40g butter

50g double (heavy) cream

2 eggs, lightly beaten

Set the oven to 170ºC 

Place the treacle, syrup and butter in a saucepan - I am lucky, I get to use one of our copper milkpans and warm over a gentle heat until the butter melts.

Stir in all the other ingredients.

Blind bake the pastry case for 15 minutes, then pour in the treacle mixture nad return the tart to the oven.

bake for a further 30 minutes.

Allow to cool before serving with clotted cream or custard.

Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2021 ©

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

Banana banter

A bunch  of browning bananas sulkily staring at me from the fruit bowl, recriminating, challenging - you should have eaten us, what are you going to do with us, bet you won't let us go to waste?

You didn't know bananas could talk, did you, but listen carefully and the riper they get, the more incessant their chatter.
But I am in no mood to be lectured by a bunch of fruit, or, to be more precise, a hand of herbs, especially as I cannot get my head round the fact that a banana is a herb.
Two of them are unceremoniously dumped in a jug, drowned with cold milk and quickly turned into milkshake.
Thus leaves another four, their brown freckles joining up before my eyes and shouting now, "eat us, eat us or you will have to throw us on the compost." I am confronted in my imagination with a vision of Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall waving an accusatory index finger and sorrowfully shaking his head, whilst wearing a t-shirt psychedelically emblazoned with #waronwaste
Note to self, perhaps a few less coffees?

The immediate thought is banana bread, and I'll wager a considerable sum that that is the first thought of many of you.  Of course, they could have been added to ice cream, frittered, turned into a banana Tarte Tatin, banoffee pie, or if my Dad were visiting, I would slice and fry them and stick them into a bacon sarnie for him - don't knock it 'til you've tried it.  But banana bread is always top of the list and there are so many variations.  We love Nigella Lawson's banana breakfast bread, with cardamom and cocoa nibs from Simply Nigella and we are also fond of one with chopped chocolate and peanut butter mixed in, but it was time for something new.

This is heavy, sticky, gooey and none the worse for that.  It's the banana equivalent of a Soreen malt loaf and given that they make over a million loaves a week, according to their website  that can be no bad thing.
Stick one in your rucksack on that next winter walk.

120g butter
120g brown sugar
2 eggs
4 ripe bananas
60g dates
150g rye flour
20g pumpkin seeds
1tsp mixed spice or cinnamon
handful of chopped nuts
1 dessertspoon runny honey

Pre heat the oven to 170ºC
Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add 2 of the bananas and mix until smooth.... If you are mixing by hand, mash the bananas first.
Thoroughly beat in the eggs, but don't worry too much if the mixture looks curdled at this stage.
Carefully fold in the flour, spice, seeds and dates.
Spoon the mixture in to a greased 2lb loaf tin.
Slice the remaining bananas lengthways and arrange on top of the cake. Sprinkle over the chopped nuts, I used almonds for this one, but hazelnuts, pistachios, pecans, walnuts or Brazil nuts would be just as good.
Drizzle the honey over the top and put the tin in the oven.

Bake for 50 minutes.  Check that it is cooked through by poking it with a skewer and if the skewer comes out clean, the cake is cooked.  If there is mixture clinging to the skewer, return it to the oven for another 10 minutes and check again.

Leave to cool in the tin, then run a palette knife around each side of the cake, invert the tin and turn out the cake.
Store in the fridge otherwise the bananas will go off quicker than you can admonish them, but remove from the fridge 30 minutes before serving for maximum enjoyment.  In this case, revenge on the talking bananas is best served at room temperature.

Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2017 ©

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

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.

Netherton Foundry 2017 ©

www.netherton-foudnry.co.uk

Toffee apple and date cake

Our loaf tins, as many people, including the lovely Nigella Lawson, already know, are good for all sorts of yummy things other than home made bread.
This is a scrumptious toffee apple cake, which tastes even better with some home made custard or a dollop of cream.

1oz butter
2oz brown sugar
Splash of brandy (optional)
2 apples - no need to peel
8 dates, pitted and chopped
1oz chopped pecans

Melt the butter in a frying pan, add the sugar and the brandy. Heat gently until sugar dissolves.
Core the apples and cut into chunky slices. Stir into the toffee sauce, with the dates.

Cook for 5 minutes and transfer to a 2lb loaf tin.
Sprinkle over the chopped pecans.

Preheat the oven to 175ºC

2 oz butter
2 oz sugar
2 oz golden syrup

2 eggs

2 oz SR flour
2 oz ground rice
1tsp mixed spice

Beat the butter until it is soft, add the sugar and syrup and beat until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs and beat thoroughly.
Fold in the flour, ground rice and mixed spice.

Spread over the apples.
Place in the oven and bake for around 20 minutes.
Leave to cool for 15 minutes.
Turn out onto a serving plate and serve sliced with whipped cream or custard.

© Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2016

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

Heritage cooking - an adaption of one of Mum's recipes

When I was a child, too long ago to mention, my Mum baked every Sunday.  The results would be served up to me and my brother at tea time and added to my Dad's packed lunches - we had the joy of school dinners!
Her repetoire included Victoria sandwich cakes, jam tarts, ground rice cakes, squashed fly pie, almond slices, egg custards - sadly with very soggy bottoms, Mary Berry would not have approved -  and, as an occasional treat,  she would make toffee tarts.  I have no idea where the original recipe came from but they were a confection of pastry case, sugar and dried fruit made even sweeter with a splodge of icing.
My teeth ache at the mere thought of them.

But the memory of the sheer pleasure these brought made me think it would be worth re-visiting her original recipe and adapting it to a more grownup palate.

And this is the result - sweet, sticky, but a little more sophisticated than those teatime treats

Short crust pastry
4oz plain flour
2 oz butter
Cold water

Place the flour in a large mixing bowl, cut the butter into small pieces and add to the flour.
Rub together until you have a mixture resembling fine breadcrumbs.
Alternatively, chuck the flour and butter into a food processor and do this the quick way!!

Add just enough cold water to bring it all together into a stiff dough.  Place in a plastic bag or greaseproof paper and leave in the fridge for ½ hour.

Grease a 10" pie dish.  Roll out the pastry and line the pie dish.

Filling
1oz butter
4oz brown sugar - dark is best
3oz chopped dates
3oz chopped walnuts
1 egg
1 orange

Place the butter and sugar into a saucepan  and place over a low heat until the butter  has melted and the sugar dissolved.
Remove from the heat.
Finely grate the orange and add the zest and the juice to the butter mix.
Stir in the dates, walnuts and egg.

Pour over the flan case and bake at 170ºC for approximately 30 minutes.

Serve in thin slices - it is very rich -  with custard, ice cream, creme fraiche or clotted cream
A custard flavoured with lemon rind and bayleaf goes beautifully with this.

© Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2015

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk