The temperature today is not only freezing cold outside but inside too. The quickest way for me to warm up is to turn on the oven and start cooking.
I didn’t know what to bake so I stood in front of my pantry shelves and looked along to see what needed using up. While trying to get some inspiration my eye fell upon a packet of unopened dates – now I needed a recipe.
Date and walnut loaf came to mind. Not too much fuss to make and good to eat buttered with a cup of tea. The slight hitch in this was persuading myself to use my cached supply of walnuts. In the garden where we live in London is a large walnut tree and back in October I had had to fight off the squirrels and crows who also had their beady eyes on them. This year the yield was pretty poor due to the bad summer so there were few nuts to go round.
The squirrels made an early start by running off with them before they were even ripe. This reduced the walnut supply sufficiently for both the crows and us, leaving only the ones at the very top of the tree. When these started to fall onto the lawn the crows would appear from nowhere, pecking through the shells and leaving walnut debris for us to find. It didn’t matter how early we got up those birds had got there first. In the end we decided that the time to strike was in the dead of night when the crows and squirrels were asleep. At around midnight every night we searched for windfalls by the light of our mobile phones. After two weeks we had collected a small harvest that we dried out before cracking them open in the New Year.
Our yield of one small jar ended up being a lot of work, but well worth it. Freshly harvested walnuts do not have that slightly bitter taste shop bought ones have and they are still contain a rich supply of walnut oil making them quite special.
Date and Walnut Loaf
Ingredients
½ pt/300ml milk
3oz/85g black treacle
2oz/55g butter
3 level tsp baking powder
12oz/350g plain flour
½ tsp salt
½ level tsp bicarbonate of soda
3oz/85g soft brown sugar
4oz/115g dates chopped
2oz/55g walnuts chopped
Method
Put the oven on to Gas mark 3/325F/170C
In a saucepan put the milk, black treacle, butter and sugar and gently heat until the butter has melted. Just when the butter is about to disappear remove from the heat.
In a bowl put the flour, baking powder, salt, bicarbonate of soda, dates and walnuts. Pour in some of the liquid from the pan and mix. Keeping adding until all the liquid is used up. Mix well incorporating all the dried ingredients.
Pour this into a greased and floured 2lb loaf tin and place in the oven for about 1 hour.
After an hour check the loaf with a skewer to see if it is cooked. If the skewer comes out clean then remove, otherwise give the loaf another 5 minutes and check again. With my gas oven I found the loaf needed 65 minutes.
Leave to cool and then slice. I prefer mine buttered and served with a cup of tea.
Tip
As it was so cold the treacle was heavy and stuck to everything and I could hardly coax it out of the measuring bowl into the pan, the quick way to release the treacle is to give it 10 seconds in a microwave.
To chop the dates I put them into a food processor and to stop them clumping together into a mass I added a couple of spoons of flour from the recipe.
Maria Dernikos 
That loaf looks like a date loaf should, good and rich. How nice to have a walnut tree in your yard. If only the wildlife wasn’t so selfish! THank, too, for the tips. They’re sure to come in handy.
Thank you John. I have to agree with you about the selfish wildlife but that is nothing to the two blackbirds who each year have great pleasure in stripping my fruit bushes or hopping into the greenhouse to help themselves even when they know I can see them!
Terrific story! I’ve got a somewhat funny visual of you and hubby clambering through the tree branches, trying to disturb the creatures on your great walnut hunt. I’m sure the taste of homegrown & creamy walnuts was worth it though… 😉
Let me tell you, the branches are much spindly than you would imagine! It was difficult enough with just the light of our phones and the thought that we were being watched! No doubt we will be repeating the exercise next year because the taste is worth it.
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A wonderful story of the struggle with the crows and squirrels. The bread sounds delicious, and I wondered if it was made with whole wheat flour. Oh-oh, when I looked at the ingredients, I did not see flour included. BTW, is black treacle a dark molasses?
Kathleen – you are eagle eyed. I forgot to add the flour into the recipe!! Thank you for spotting it. I go over and over my recipes and make them on average three times before posting. I write each step into a notebook and try and make sure I don’t leave anything out. I don’t know how I forgot to add the flour.