Oat and Date Squares

The other day I looked over to see Ed gazing into the difference reminiscing about something.

“What ya thinking about?” I ask, as I’m nosey like that.

“Oh I was just remembering the date slices we used to have at school, they had a crumbly base and topping and a layer of sticky dates through the middle. I liked them.”

Now this happens quite regularly. Ed will remember some food from school or something his Mum or Grandma used to make and I try to work out what it was by drawing out details of the tastes and textures from his memory.  Then I attempt to recreate it with limited information and some help from the power of Google. Cornflake Cookies are a successful case in point. This time though he decided he was going to recreate them himself so he took various recipes and mashed them up to get to these Oat and Date Squares.

As always before we release a recipe into the wild we cook it a couple of times to check the flavour and quantities are right, so Ed made more yesterday, because the first batch barely touched the sides.

So here they are. A simple, crumbly oat and date traybake thing.

Date & Oat Squares

Filling

250g chopped dates
100ml orange juice (or water if you don’t have juice)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
A squeeze of lemon juice

Crumble

175g self-raising flour
175g butter
100g oats
100g golden caster sugar (or maybe soft brown sugar)
25g demerara sugar

Oven to 170ºc. Grease a 20cm square loose bottomed tin.

1. Place all filling ingredients in pan, and heat gently until mixture forms a gloopy paste.
2. Add more water if it gets too thick. Leave it to cool a little.
3. Rub butter into the flour until it’s like breadcrumbs. Stir in the oats and caster sugar, and mix well. place half the crumble mixture into the greased tray. Press down firmly.
4. Smooth the warm filling over the top, not quite spreading up to the edge of the tin.
5. Tumble the remaining crumble over the top, press down with a pallette knife or the flat of your hands and sprinkle with brown sugar.
6. Bake for around 30-35 minutes until lightly browned.
7. Allow to cool a little then run a knife round the edge and lift out of the tin.
8. Slice into 16 when cold, if you can wait that long.

Note:

No, you are not imagining things. This is an actual Things{we}make post, the first in 2 years. TWO YEARS! We’re back. If only to document things that we make so that the recipes don’t get lost on scraps of paper at the back of the utensil drawer. I’m going to share some of the recipes I have been making for clients too. It’s nice to be back. Hi ya!