Date and Ginger Slab. It’s a dark, sticky, sweet, cake-like traybake. A little like a gingerbread but not as heavily spiced. And very dark and sticky from all the treacle. I have a recipe for Ginger Cake on the blog already and multiple recipes for traybakes with dates and traybakes with ginger and even some traybakes with dates and ginger like these Date and Ginger Crunchies, so this Date and Ginger Slab is in good company.

Another easy one, just some melting and mixing required. Don’t chop the dates too small and just melt the wet ingredients long enough to soften the dates as you want to have some obvious pieces of date through this bake.

If you can’t get hold of treacle easily (I need to go to a specialist import store to get hold of it here in the US) you can substitute molasses. They are remarkably similar, but the treacle is a little sweeter and darker, in my opinion. I did a side-by-side comparison when I was making my Treacle Scones if you want to look at the differences.

Date and Ginger Slab

A dark, rich ginger cake with dates. Sticky, chewy and very sweet.

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Prep Time 20 minutes mins

Cook Time 30 minutes mins

Course Dessert, Snack

Cuisine british, Irish

Servings 9 squares

Ingredients

  

• 4 oz or 110g butter
• 4 oz or 110g black treacle or molasses
• 6 or 175g chopped dates
• 4 oz or 110g granulated sugar
• 4 fl oz or 120ml water
• ½ tsp baking soda (bicarbonate of soda)
• 1 egg
• 8 oz or 225g plain flour (all-purpose flour)
• 2 tsp ground ginger

Instructions

 

• Preheat your oven to 350F/180C (conventional oven) and line a 20 cm/8 inch tin with baking parchment.
• Place the butter, sugar, dates and treacle/molasses in a saucepan with the water and melt over a low heat.
• Take the pan off the heat and allow to cool a little. Then add the baking soda and beat in the egg.
• Gradually mix in the flour and ginger until well combined.
• Pour into the prepared tin and bake for approximately 30 minutes.
• Leave to cool in the tin before turning out and cutting into squares.

Video

Keyword cake, dates, ginger, molasses, treacle