Date Pudding recipe

Happy Mother's Day! Cooking is one of my favorite ways to honor the legacy that my grandmothers and my mom have given me, so let's celebrate with a recipe.

Last night we had friends over for dinner. We had feijoada and the works and my grandmother's date pudding for dessert. Recently I discovered that I had forgotten about the Costco-sized carton of dates I bought a while ago, and a bag of black beans I had been saving for a special occasion. With 7 weeks left in this house, now is the time to use up all those hoarded "special occasion" foods.

When I discovered the dates in the pantry cupboard, I emailed my mom for recipes, and she sent me a scan of my grandmother's carefully handwritten recipe card. I ended up typing it out to make note of a few changes and clarifications, so why not post it here?


Date Pudding

(This 9x13 pan was too big. I would definitely suggest a smaller size.)

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C)

Put in baking pan (around 8 or 9 inches square):

• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 ½ cups hot water
• Butter (about 3 tablespoons) cut into small chunks

Stir to melt sugar and butter.

In a bowl, mix:

• 1 cup flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup chopped dates
• 1 cup chopped nuts

Make a well in the center and add:

• ½ cup milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix until smooth. Spoon batter into sugar-water-butter mix.

Bake 45 minutes-1 hour, until the pudding is set (shake it a bit, and make sure it doesn’t jiggle).

Here's the original recipe. Note that the amount of sugar has been reduced (by my mom). I reduced it again. It's still very sweet.

In case you are interested, here's pictures of last night's dinner:

With Kyoko and Tsubasa

Feijoada, farofa, Brazilian rice, vinaigrette, greens with garlic