Israeli Date and Pecan Cake

This month's challenge from Alpha Bakes is a hard one - baking something beginning with letter I . Lots of recipes begin with 'iced ....... ' but I wanted to find something different.
I borrowed a book from the library called 'Cakes, Tortes and Gateaux'  - it has no author, and I found a recipe for an Israeli cake. I love cakes with nuts and I like dates, so had to give it a try. I changed a few things in the recipe, and had to convert it to grams. It worked out really well, and is full of good things.

2 eggs
180ml honey
150ml buttermilk
1 tspn vanilla essence
3 mashed bananas
300g sr flour
1 tspn baking powder
100g soft brown sugar
2 tbspn cocoa
1 tspn cinnamon
1 tspn allspice
pinch salt
125g butter
150g chopped dates
125g chopped pecans
2 tbspns honey for top of cake

Preheat oven 180C/gas4
grease a 23cm springform tin

Beat together the eggs, honey, buttermilk and vanilla essence, then add the bananas.
Keep 2 tbspn of the flour, then put the rest with the baking powder, sugar, cocoa, spices and salt in another bowl and add the egg mixture. Mix together gently with an electric beater or stand mixer, then add the butter and beat till smooth. Takes about 4 mins.
Mix the 2 tbspn flour with the dates and pecans and fold these into the mixture.
Spoon into the tin and bake for 1 hr and 20 mins.
Heat the 2 tbspn of honey and brush over the cake, then leave it to cool.

It's a lovely nutty cake, not too sweet, and it also keeps very well in an airtight tin. We had it as a dessert with some creme fraiche, but ice cream would be good too. It's full of flavour and is moist, but not too soft. You can really taste the dates and pecans. I expected it to be like a sticky toffee pudding, but it wasn't.

Alpha Bakes is a monthly baking challenge hosted alternately by Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker blog and Caroline of Caroline Makes blog. This month Caroline is hosting, the letter is I and you can find out more about the challenge here .

Buttermilk and rhubarb cake

Rhubarb is one of my favourite things to eat, so when I saw some lovely and pink, it made my day. We need a bit of colour in this dreary month! I didn't want to make a crumble, so thought about a cake. I'd seen this recipe ages ago on this site Taste of Home, so decided to have a go at changing the cups to grams and to make the cake.

100g rhubarb cut into small chunks
25g + 150g caster sugar
115g unsalted butter, softened
2 eggs
1 1/2 tspn vanilla essence
175g plain/all purpose flour
1 tspn baking powder
1/2 tspn salt
Pinch of bicarbonate of soda
180ml buttermilk
Brown sugar for the topping



Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Grease and line a 2lb loaf tin.

Put the rhubarb in a bowl with 25g of sugar and set aside.
Cream together the butter and the rest of the sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time and beat in well. Add the vanilla essence.
Sift all the dry ingredients together into a big bowl. Add 1/3 of the dry ingredients and fold into the mixture. Follow with half the buttermilk, another 1/3 of the dry ingredients, the rest of the buttermilk and the rest of the dry ingredients. Mix gently after each addition, but don't overmix. Finally fold in the rhubarb.
Pour into your tin, sprinkle the top with brown sugar and bake for 30 - 40 minutes till golden brown.
Allow to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before putting on a wire rack.

It's a delicious cake - nice and moist, and the tangy buttermilk works well with the tart rhubarb and the vanilla. The brown sugar gives it a nice crunch on top. I think the recipe would work well with other fruit like raspberries, cranberries or cherries. It's one to be added to my recipe folder to make again.