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–+ servings
A close up of walnut date cake with caramel.
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4.78 from 9 votes

Date cake

This easy-to-make date cake with walnuts is topped with a delicious homemade caramel sauce. It's a perfect snack or a sweet treat to have with your coffee or tea. Even as someone who is not particularly fond of dates, I couldn't resist this cake!
Prep Time15 minutes
Cook Time50 minutes
Total Time1 hour 5 minutes
Course: Baking
Cuisine: World
Keyword: date cake, date recipes, fall baking
Servings: 12 portions
Calories: 325kcal
Author: Maayke

Ingredients

For the date cake

  • 4 eggs
  • ½ cup granulated sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla exctract
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • ½ cup oil
  • 1 ¼ cup all purpose flour + 2 tablespoons
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 2 teaspoons cinnamon
  • ½ cup milk + 3 tablespoons
  • 10 medjool dates

For the caramel topping

  • ½ cup granulated sugar
  • 3 tablespoons heavy cream
  • ¼ cup butter
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
US Customary - Metric

Instructions

How to bake the date cake

  • Preheat your oven to 175 C and grease a 20x25 baking pan.
  • Place the eggs, sugar, salt, sunflower oil and vanilla sugar in a large batter bowl and mix well until lighter in color and fluffy.
  • Pour in the milk and mix well again.
  • Add the flour, cinnamon and baking powder and mix with a whisk until there are no more lumps.
  • Spoon the dates and walnuts into the batter and pour into the baking pan.
  • Place your date cake in the center of the oven and bake for about 30 minutes until done. Because every oven is different, I recommend checking after 25 minutes to see if your cake is done. You can do this by poking a skewer in the middle of the cake. If it comes out clean then it is done.
  • Remove the date cake from the oven and let it cool completely before serving.

How to make the caramel topping

  • Put the sugar in a thick-bottomed saucepan and slowly melt the sugar over low heat. This may take a while, but don't turn up the heat!
  • Once the sugar is melted and has a nice honey color, turn down the heat and stir in the cream. CAUTION: The sugar is very hot and adding the cream will create a lot of steam and bubble the sugar up.
  • Heat while stirring until any solidified particles are liquid again then turn off the heat.
  • Add the butter and salt and keep stirring until the butter has melted and you have a nice smooth caramel sauce.
  • Pour the caramel into a heatproof bowl and let it cool completely.
    Spread the caramel over the date cake and cut into small cubes.

Nutrition

Calories: 325kcal | Carbohydrates: 43g | Protein: 4g | Fat: 16g | Saturated Fat: 5g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 3g | Monounsaturated Fat: 8g | Trans Fat: 0.2g | Cholesterol: 70mg | Sodium: 237mg | Potassium: 196mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 31g | Vitamin A: 300IU | Vitamin C: 0.04mg | Calcium: 62mg | Iron: 1mg