Date Bars, Redux and Reworked

When we moved to the Middle East twenty-seven years ago, we discovered that dates were the thing. I'm not sure I'd eaten a date before moving to Jordan. Not only were dried dates plentiful and inexpensive, I could purchase a 2 lb block of date paste for a couple dollars. Looking for ways to capitalize on local products, I began making date bars. Below is the recipe given to me in 1988 by a fellow language student. As you can see, it has been well-used...and/or I'm a messy baker!

And now dates are the thing in the US as well, with many new recipes calling for dried dates to replace refined sugars as a sweetener. I hadn't made date bars for awhile, but an email from a friend prompted me to re-visit this recipe. And, she informed me that 5 lbs chunks of date paste can be purchased in the the US as well. 

Remembering how much I liked date bars prompted me to re-work this recipe, making it a no-sugar, no-wheat flour recipe. It wasn't hard to do and the results, delicious.

A Better Date Bar

3/4 cup butter
1/2 cup honey
1 1/2 cups almond flour or almond meal
1 cup unsweetened coconut
2 3/4 cup rolled oats (I use quick oats as that is what is available here--works fine)
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

1 lb of seedless dates (you can use pitted dates, but if you can get ahold of some date paste, your work will be easier.)
1 cup water

Cream butter and honey. Mix in the almond flour/meal and then stir in the rest of the dried ingredients to make the crumb bottom and top.

Heat dates and water in a saucepan for a few minutes to make a spreadable paste.

Press half the crumb mixture in a baking pan. Spread the date paste on top, and then top with the remaining crumb mixture. Bake for 1/2 hour at 350 F/175 C. Let cool before cutting.

Notate Bene:

--Once cooled, I like to store these in the refrigerator. The dates firm up and they hold together very nicely.

--I will try substituting date syrup for honey next time I make these. I imagine you could try other sugar substitutes besides.

--I used a mid-sized baking dish, approximately 8"x 10", but you could use a slightly larger one as well as the bars turned out plenty thick.

These date bars are very rich and you should probably eat just one at a time (yes, mom), but one looked lonely on the plate, so I added another for the picture. I'm working to build up a repertoire of no-sugar, no-wheat flour (or, gluten free) recipes for healthier Christmas treats, and this one will be the first on the list. 

Our New Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookie

These are our new favorite chocolate chip cookies: Browned Butter and Sea Salt Chocolate Chip Cookies from the Ambitious Kitchen.  Actually, these are our new-favorite-cookie-of-all-time, and that is saying a lot, especially for me, for whom chocolate chip cookies weren't even in the top five of my favorite cookies. Dear Husband has taken to making tally marks on the kitchen white-board so that he can be publicly accountable for his cookie consumption. These cookies are that good, and since the recipe has already been requested a couple of times, on to my blog it goes.

Tayta and I have modified the Ambitious Kitchen recipe, but Monique gets all the credit for coming up with this great combination of tastes. Our modifications include: using full fat but not Greek yogurt, adding walnuts, using only brown sugar, using only semi-sweet chocolate chips and slightly reducing the quantity of chocolate chips--we're used to that, living in Jordan where a bag of chocolate chips cost a little over $5--on a good day, when they are in the market. And, we make a larger batch.

Brown Butter, Brown Sugar and Sea Salt Chocolate Chip Cookies
 (Dough needs to chill)

Ingredients:
4 1/2 cups flour
3 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon sea salt (fine)
2 cups unsalted butter
3 cups brown sugar
2 large eggs plus 2 egg yolks
2 Tablespoon full-fat yogurt (but I'm sure lowfat would work fine, too.)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 12 oz. package of dark semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 to 11/2 cups chopped walnuts
coarse sea salt for sprinkling

--Preheat oven to 350 degrees F, 175 C.
--Melt butter in a heavy bottom saucepan over medium. Once the butter begins to foam, continue whisking the butter just until it begins to brown  and gives off a nutty aroma. Remove it from the heat and transfer to a mixing bowl right away so that the butter doesn't continue to cook. This extra step of browning the butter is very worth the effort! Think toffee-flavored cookies. Monique provides a great pictorial tutorial for this step. Let the browned butter cool for before continuing.You can do this quickly by pouring it into a separate bowl.
--Mix butter and sugar with an electric mixer until well blended--I use my Bosch. Beat in eggs, yolks, vanilla, and yogurt.
--Add the dry flour, baking soda, salt. When all is well blended, stir (or mix) in chocolate chips and walnuts.
--Chill dough in the refrigerator for 1-2 hours.
--We used a small cookie scoop to size our cookies, but you could roll them into balls. Place dough on a cookie sheet and press down slightly to flatten. I use the back of a flat spatula. Sprinkle the cookies with just a little bit of sea salt.
--Bake the cookies about 10 minutes--our gas oven isn't well regulated so we check them regularly. The edges of the cookies will be firm and the cookies will be golden brown when they are done. Since the recipe calls for all brown sugar, the cookies will be a little but darker (see picture above), but they are chewy, rather than crisp.
--Cool cookies on a wire rack.