We threw a goodbye dinner party to celebrate a friend’s new life journey (moving to Dubai for 3 years!). The party theme was California cuisine. I must tell you I made an amazing date cake. It was so moist! It was the ultimate in comfort food, not too sweet and the texture was like nothing I’ve had before: cakey but with a really nice density. Oh, and did I mention it has a caramel bourbon sauce? Uh ya… amaze!!!
I’d highly recommend this Decadent Date Cake as an alternative to “just another cake”. You and your guests will love it! Best of all, it’s kind of healthy because it’s high in fiber and potassium so you don’t have to feel too guilty while you indulge.
Although I did make a few changes from the original recipe, this was inspired by our favorite restaurant in LA: Gjelina. My addition was adding cardamom and walnuts, and using less sugar. I’m glad I made those changes because the cardamom warmed up the flavor the walnuts added even more interest to the texture! It was plenty sweet with less sugar, especially with ice cream and the bourban caramel sauce. I also adjusted the water a bit. Here is my rendition:
BOURBON CARAMEL SAUCE
5 T butter
2 C dark brown sugar
1 C heavy cream
3 T bourbon (optional)
CAKE INGREDIENTS
1 lb dates, pitted
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 C boiling water
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cardamom
1 C sugar
1 egg, plus 1 egg yolk
2¼ C all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 C walnuts
DIRECTIONS:
For the cake: Preheat oven to 350 F and butter a 9 x 12-inch pan.
Combine dates and baking soda. Pour hot water over dates (see below) and mix until smooth but a little chunky.
In another bowl combine vanilla, cardamom, sugar, and eggs until pale yellow. Stir in date mixture and walnuts.
In separate bowl, stir together flour and baking powder. Gently fold in the date mixture.
Pour batter into a baking dish and bake about 40 minutes until toothpick comes out clean. Let sit about 40 minutes.
For the sauce: Using heavy pan, melt the butter with brown sugar. As soon as it becomes one big clump, slowly add the heavy cream, approximately ¼ cup at a time. Watch it turn into translucent caramelly goodness. Remove from heat; whisk in bourbon.
Pierce the cake with end of wooden spoon about 20 times, pour half of the caramel sauce allowing it to soak in.
To serve: Serve room temperature with warm caramel sauce and a nice scoop of your favorite vanilla ice cream or gelato. I use Talenti. OMG!!!
Use a nice deep bowl for the dates.
After adding the boiling water, I let it sit for just a minute to allow the dates to soften slightly.
Then just begin the mashing it took about 5 minutes and I wanted it a little bit of a chunky texture so I decided not to turn in into a paste. I could’ve probably done this in my food processor but it was pretty easy by hand.
This is the consistency I went with.