Date and Ginger Slab

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.

Ingredients

4oz/110g butter

4oz/110g treacle or molasses

8oz/225g plain flour (all-purpose flour)

4 fl oz/120ml water

0.5 tsp baking soda (bicarbonate of soda)

4oz/110g granulated sugar

6oz/175g dates, chopped

1 egg

2 tsp ground ginger

Method

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

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