Sticky Date Cake with Caramel Sauce

Why dates??? Well... for the starters good old dates are full of iron (which currently I am low on) and secondly because they taste so good be it just plain old date cake or date and walnut one or simply in a chutney.

Dates have been a staple food of the Middle East for thousands of years. Khajur as they are known here in India are one of the most popular fruits packed with an impressive list of essential nutrients, vitamins, and minerals that are required for normal growth, development and overall well-being. Dates are an excellent source of iron. Iron, being a component of hemoglobin inside the red blood cells, determines the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood.

I have paired the date cake with caramel sauce but it taste great with plain vanilla ice cream also.


Ingredients:

For the date cake:

1 cup        Maida
1 cup        Butter
1 cup        Sugar
1 cup        Dates (I have used seedless Arabian dates)
2               Eggs
1 tsp         Baking powder
1/2 tsp      Vanilla Essence

For the Caramel Sauce:

1 cup                Sugar (Ideally brown sugar should be used)
1 cup                Butter
1 cup                Cream
a few drops      Vanilla Essence

Method:

For the cake:

Beat the eggs. Sieve the Maida and the baking powder.

I used seedless Arabian dates which were very soft but if you are using regular one just deseed them and boil them in a cup of water. When soft, just give them a buzz in the mixie.

Cream the butter and the sugar. Now add the eggs and mix. Add the dates and mix well. Lastly add the maida slowly and fold gently. Put in the vanilla and blend.

Grease the cake tin and bake at 180 degrees for 20 mins. 

For the Caramel Sauce:

This recipe needs brown sugar but since I had run out of it, I caramalised the regular sugar.

 














In a non stick pan, toss in the sugar and 2 tsp of water and let the sugar caramalise. As the sugar caramalises into a nice golder color, add the butter. When the butter is incorporated add the cream and mix till you get a nice caramel color.

Serve the date cake warm and pour the warm caramel sauce over it.