Whenever I bake food for the gods, I suddenly remember the Christmas holidays in the Philippines. Oh, our country takes this holiday seriously. I mean like this is by far is the most celebrated event, well besides birthdays. One of the goodies that I wrap and give as presents to family and friends is food for the gods or also known as date bars. My husband's boss just gave him a box of Iranian dates and what better way to use these dates than to bake these food for the gods. To achieve the chewy and gooey texture of this recipe, I used honey. If you do not have honey, you can always substitute this with corn syrup or liquid glucose. Then another key factor to remember when baking food for the gods is to use brown sugar. Yes, you cannot use the white granulated sugar. The brown sugar gives your food for the gods the aroma, color and moisture. If you can find molasses or muscovado sugar in your place, then that is a decent substitute for the brown sugar. I also soaked the chopped pitted dates into about 1/4 cup of dark rum. The rum in this recipe gives some moisture and softens the dates which makes your product more chewy and it also helps in prolonging the shelf life. For the walnuts, you do not want them to be finely chopped. Your ideal food for the gods is to bite in some chunks of walnuts along with bits of dates. There are some recipes that has raisins and other types of nuts like pecans and cashew nuts in them. You can experiment on your preference of nuts that you will be adding into your food for the gods recipe. After baking, wait for them to cool before cutting them into squares or bars. If you cut the food for the gods while they are still warm, your knife will just stick on the bars and that will definitely be a problem. You can wrap your food for the gods bars individually with foil or colored cellophane wrappers. I enjoy my food for the gods with a cup of tea or coffee.
This recipe needs only few ingredients.
Melt the butter in a microwave and then stir in the brown sugar.
Mix in the honey and vanilla extract and continue mixing with a whisk.
Add in the eggs and beat well.
Blend in the chopped dates and walnuts.
Add in the flour and baking powder and mix well until no lumps is seen, but make sure not to over mix your batter.
Bake at a preheated oven on a 9x12 inches rectangular baking pan. Do not over bake so that you will have a moist food for the gods.
Ingredients
- 3/4 cups melted butter
- 1 cup of brown sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1/2 cup honey
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup sifted all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup chopped pitted dates
- 1 cup roughly chopped walnuts
- 1/4 cup dark rum
Directions
- 1Melt the butter in a microwave. Then add in the brown sugar and mix well.
- 2Add in the eggs and beating well after each addition. Mix in the honey and the vanilla extract.
- 3Stir in the chopped dates and walnuts. Blend well.
- 4Mix in the sifted flour and baking powder. Do not over mix.
- 5Bake in a 350 F pre-heated oven for 35 minutes.
- 6Let cool before cutting into bars.
