My mother wasn't a great cook. She was competent enough, but not very creative. This is one of a handful of recipes I copied from her card file before I first left the states. I have no idea where this originated. It's an unusual recipe, and one I haven't seen replicated in the varied bakery scene in contemporary Portland. Perhaps that's because of the unusual preparation method. You really do need to use a meat grinder to get the orange and dates chopped and combined with the right consistency. I've tried using a food processor but it doesn't really do the job. Fortunately I found a cheap hand-cranked grinder on Amazon. It's mostly plastic but it does the job.
Orange-date cakes baked in mini-bundt molds.
Ingredients
| 1 | cup | Sugar |
| 1 | tsp | Baking soda |
| 1 | tsp | Baking powder |
| 1/2 | cup | Butter |
| 1/2 | tsp | Salt |
| 1 | whole | Orange |
| 1 | cup chopped | Dates |
| 2 | Eggs | |
| 1 | tsp | Vanilla extract |
| 1 | cup | Buttermilk |
| 2 | cups | Flour |
Preparation
- Preheat the oven to 350°. Grease and flour a 9"x13" pan.
- Juice the orange. Add a half cup of sugar to the juice and set aside.
- Put the orange rind and dates through a food grinder together.
- Combine the ingredients in the order shown.
- Bake for 30 minutes.
- While the cake is still warm, spoon the orange juice and sugar mixture over it to form a glaze.
Nutrition FactsServings Per Recipe 18 |
|
|---|---|
| Amount Per Serving | |
| Calories 186 | Calories from Fat 58 |
| Total Fat 6g | 10% |
| Saturated 4g | 19% |
| Trans Fat 0g | |
| Cholesterol 38mg | 13% |
| Total Carbohydrate 30g | 10% |
| Dietary Fiber 1g | 5% |
| Total Sugars 17g | |
| Protein 3g | |