The Corkless Mind

Tag: Medjool dates

  • Spiced date and pecan nut pudding

    Spiced date and pecan nut pudding

    This gorgeous dessert is straight out of this month’s issue of PnP’s Freshliving magazine, and oh what a decadent treat it is for the cold days that are still ahead!

    I don’t get to shoot much these days, it however feels amazing to be back behind the lens and it feels like second nature to me. There is no better reminder of your passion than to constantly put it to practice. This I am glad I made the time for. We all need reminders of what we love doing or what we are good at when times are turbulent.

    This dessert is a spectacular as a hearty addition to any Sunday lunch or dinner for that matter. I love that the flavour reminds me of Cinnabon, especially with the caramel sauce I added, crushed pecan nuts and subtle notes of cinnamon. Eat with caution should certainly be the caveat that should accompany this dessert.

    I wanted to serve this dessert with a molten, salty, dripping caramel sauce to complement the nutty sweet flavours of this pud. I improvised and made a smokey salted buttermilk butterscotch sauce to drench the pud with. Butter being the key in this recipe 🙂 butter indeed does make everything taste so much better!



    Spiced Date and Pecan nut pudding with a salted buttermilk butterscotch sauce. 



    Ingredients:
    – 150g Medjool dates

    – 100g Butter, melted.

    – 250ml Milk

    – 2 free-range eggs

    – 8ml vanilla extract

    – 125g caster sugar

    – 3ml salt

    – 300g self-raising flour

    – 50g pecan nuts, chopped

    – 10ml cinnamon

    – 5ml ground ginger

    – 5ml ground cardamom

    – 250ml sugar

    – 310ml boiling water

    – 60ml sherry or clemengold mandarin juice (I used a combination of both)

    – Smokey salted buttermilk butterscotch sauce to serve.
    Method:

    Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Lightly grease any dish. I used a Bundt mold.

    Whisk eggs and sugar until light and fluffy. Using my NutriBullet or you could use any other blender, blitz half of the dates together with the melted butter until a paste-like consistency is achieved. Roughly chop the rest of dates, I did this for extra texture in the pud. Add this to the date paste.

    Add the date mixture, milk, vanilla extract to the egg mixture. Combine the flour, salt, nuts and spices together then fold into the egg mixture.

    Pour the batter into the prepared baking tin or dish, sprinkle over brown sugar evenly over the batter.
    To make the topping: 

    Mix together the water and sherry/mandarin or orange juice, pour over the back of a spoon to cover the pudding. Bake the pudding for 35 minutes or until just cooked. Serve with cream and the salted buttermilk butterscotch sauce drizzled over.

  • Banana and Date loaf.


    I love bananas and always end up buying way more than I actually need. So if you, like me find yourself with too many slightly overripe bananas than this is the perfect solution for you. Of course you could do just about anything else with overripe bananas like, banana flapjacks as seen previously on Off Beet Blog, or separate the batter into a muffin tin to make smaller portions of the tasty loaf. I sometimes mash up one or two into a granola bar mix of which I make on a weekly basis. 
    Recreating classics is what excites me although mindfully keeping the said ‘classic’s’integrity in tact.The recipe is from Woolworths Taste by Clement Pedro, who is now on Afternoon Express as their resident Chef. As always, I tweaked the recipe and added two more bananas, chopped walnuts and dried Medjool dates. I love the added texture the dates and the walnuts lend to the banana loaf,that said it has a ‘cake like’ soft texture too. I added a few Pomegranate rubies for a pop of colour, why not?


    The photos were taken yesterday at noon once again. As you can tell by now this is one of my favourite times to shoot during the day. Natural light was rather moody with it being overcast out but with a few reflector boards perfectly positioned, a white sheet on the table to create texture and bounce the light I made it work. 

    Happy baking! 🙂