This deliciously moist and spongy date and nut loaf cake can be a lovely addition to your breakfast, dessert, or afternoon snacks. Made with medjool dates and nuts, this simple egg free loaf cake recipe is a life saver when it comes to some mindful snacking!!
WHY YOU WILL LOVE THIS DATE CAKE RECIPE
This Date and Nut Loaf Cake recipe has no eggs, no butter making it healthier and little more heart friendly.
This Date and Nut Loaf Bread is filled with the goodness and natural sweetness of medjool dates and the crunch of walnuts.
This cake is not at all overwhelming sweet.
Healthy, low sugar, egg free, butter free cake that can double as a tea cake as well as a breakfast cake.
This Date and Nuts Loaf Bread is incredibly moist and, made with olive oil, dates, and nuts, and Greek yogurt. it’s a healthier alternative to regular quick bread. You can use this recipe to make mini loaves or one large loaf.
INGREDIENTS USED IN THIS DATE AND NUTS CAKE
- Medjool Dates: Organic good quality Medjool dates add moisture and a beautiful deep caramel flavor to the cake. Dates also add natural sweetness.
- Baking soda: The baking soda not only activates with the yogurt to act as a leavening agent but also it chemically reacts with the dates to make them super soft.
- Boiling water: Boiling water is used to soften the dates
- Olive oil: Light olive oil
- Sugar: I have used white sugar. You can use brown if you wish.
- Buttermilk: I have used a homemade buttermilk by adding 1 tbsp white vinegar to 1/2 cup milk and then letting it rest for 5 minutes.
- All purpose flour or Maida: I have used regular flour for this recipe. I’m sure this cake can be made with GF flour though I haven’t tried with GF flour yet.
- Vanilla extract: Vanilla enhances the flavors.
- Nuts chopped (I used walnuts)
STEP BY STEP INSTRUCTIONS TO MAKE THE BEST DATE CAKE
STEP 1: Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray a 9-inch round pan with nonstick spray and line with parchment paper.
STEP 2: Place chopped dates in a large bowl and sprinkle with baking soda. Pour boiling water over the dates and let sit until cool.
STEP 3: In another mixing bowl beat oil and sugar for 2 minutes and then add the buttermilk. Mix until creamy. Add vanilla essence.
STEP 4: Sift the dry ingredients.
STEP 5: Add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and mix gently.
STEP 6: Pour the batter into the pan and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
TIPS AND TRICKS
Soak the dates in orange juice instead of water. It provides the cake with a hint of orange citrus flavor that goes well with the dates.
If you want to get moistness inside the cake, brush the warm cake with some sugar syrup
Measure your flour correctly: Cakes can become dry when you add too much flour. Make sure you’re measuring flour correctly so you’re not accidentally adding too much.
Adding soda helps break down the dates and disperse them through the mixture so they don’t sink to the bottom.
Medjool dates are the best variety to use in this recipe. just one of hundreds of varieties of date. With a sweet, caramel taste and chewy texture, Medjool dates provide that perfect taste and texture that we are looking for in a date and nuts cake.
Use a mixture of nuts like almonds, walnuts and cashews to get some variety.
If your cake doesn’t rise much at all and leads to gummy or mushy cake then most likely the baking powder is too old.
SOME OTHER DATE RECIPES
Sticky Date Pudding with Rum Caramel Sauce
Olive Oil Date and Walnut Cake
Tamarind Date Chutney Recipe (Imli ki Chutney)
Egg Less Date and Nut Loaf Cake
Ingredients
DRY INGREDIENTS
- 2 Cups Dates chopped with pits removed (350g)
- 1 Tbsp Baking soda
- 1 & 1/2 Cups Sugar (400g)
- 3 Cups All purpose flour or maida (300g)
- 1 Cup Walnuts chopped (150g)
WET INGREDIENTS
- 2 Cups Boiling water (450g)
- 1/2 Cup Light olive oil
- 1/2 Cup Buttermilk
- 2 TSP Vanilla extract
Instructions
PREPARATION
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and line a 9 inch round cake tin. Keep aside.
- Place chopped dates in a large bowl and sprinkle with baking soda. Pour boiling water over the dates and let sit until cool.
SIFT THE DRY INGREDIENTS
- Sift the flour and salt a couple of times.
MIX THE WET INGREDIENTS
- In the bowl mix oil and sugar for 2 minutes. You can use an electric mixer or mix it with your hands.
- Add the buttermilk and vanilla essence.
FOLD THE DRY INGREDIENTS INTO THE WET INGREDIENTS
- Add the sifted flour into the wet ingredients and mix gently until all is incorporated.
- Add dates (with water) and chopped nuts and stir until blended.
BAKE THE DATES AND LOAF CAKE
- Pour the date and nuts loaf cake batter into the greased cake pan and bake at 350 degrees for 35-45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean
Obsessed with this, so good
There is sugar and dates will it be sweet or sugari
Thank you for this no fail recipe. I baked it twice this week and we enjoyed that for breakfast and snacks.
Looks amazing! Want to try it this week.
You mentioned Greek yogurt up front but just yogurt in the ingredients list. Which one did you use?
Hi, your recipe says 1lb/2cups/350gms. Those measurements don’t align. Can you please let us know if that was an error or what would the right measurements to use?
Thank you!!
You would need 2 cups chopped dates which is equivalent to 350 grams
hey..lovely recipe cant wait to try it. just a question thought..the dates are 350 gms or 375 gms, ur previous comment mentions 350 gms but ingredients says 375 gms. thanks in advance
hi what size round pan did you use ? thanks
The cake looks delicious. What is the size of the baking pans used? You haven’t specified a pan size and this leads to baking disasters sometimes as a cake recipe meant for a 8 in round cannot be baked for the same amount of time in a 9 in round or definitely not a 9 by 9 square. Also due to different volumes, this could lead to improper cake rising and sinking. I have tried this recipe long time back both with butter and oil, but with much less amounts and this looks like for three 8 inch or 9 in round pans? Also the conversion from cups to grams for ingredients don’t add up as 1 Standard US cup of sugar is 200 g and so 1 1/2 cups should be 300 g? I hate to be critical, but frustrated with trying out Indian baker recipes which don’t specify the recipe measurements correctly, as baking is dependent on accurate ingredient measurements, temperature, and pan sizes.
Can dates be replaced with date syrup
Unfortunately no! Date syrup can be replaced with sugar but not for the dates.
9 inch pan
Hi, can I use melted butter in place of oil? I like the flavour of butter better?
Hi Kaye!! Absolutely
You mentioned buttermilk and yoghurt ?
Which did you use . Recipe says buttermilk but you mentioned yoghurt ? Please advise , thanks . Angeline
Hey! You can use either buttermilk or yogurt. If the yogurt is sour, then it will spoil the taste of the cake. If you have buttermilk available then use buttermilk instead.
Can you please help me with the measures for a 6 inch cake tin
I tried the cske and it was delicious but it sank from the centre Don’t know why
Could be because of – 1. Overmixing the batter. 2. Baking soda has expired
You can use either.