Date Cake

Baking tool:

• (pyrex) savarin cake pan,
• diameter top 22,5,
• contents 1,1 l.,
• greased with butter

Batter:

• 200 g dried dates, stoned
• 175 g self raising flour
• 50 g plain flour
• pinch of salt
• 175 g soft butter
• 150 g caster sugar
• 3 eggs, large and very fresh
• 50 ml orange juice 

Garnish:

• 250 g icing sugar
• 4-6 tablespoons orange juice
• orange peel

Print dit recept

Ka’k al-burtuqal wa’l- tamar, brought from Oman. There the date, just as everywhere in Muslim countries, plays a very important role in the gastronomic culture from times immemorial. In Niswah, a ravishing small town in one of the largest date plantations of the country, I was welcomed with date paste and coffee by the owner of restaurant Al-Aqur. And during Ramadan a date with butter is eaten at the beginning of the evening meal, a fruit that was very much appreciated by the prophet Mohammed according to the tradition. He would have said: ‘a household without dates is a hungry household’. It is not simply a coincidence that the cultivation of dates is blooming in the Arab world.

Scientists at the Sultan Qaboos University have investigated new applications of the date, warm-heartedly supported by the enlightened despot. From these efforts this cake is a cheerful side effect. Not very Arabic? Well, as Western as the currant bread and the English wedding cake, you could buy at the baker’s in Al-Chuwair. This is very easy explained. It was the British-Dutch Shell that discovered oil in Oman in 1962, with as a result compounds full of not indigenous people. And so two English ladies (Parfitt and Valentine) could write an informative Omani date-book, sponsored by the firm Dateflake and dedicated to Sultan Qaboos bin Said (MCBS, Mina Al-Fahal, 1995).