50 Recipes 2011, #17: chocolate date cake

[nonelvis]

I'm not the world's biggest date fan, but when Tasteologie sent a tweet today about chocolate date cake, I suddenly realized that was exactly what I wanted to eat. Unfortunately, I still had to make it before I could eat it, and equally unfortunately, the recipe Tasteologie linked to required mini-bundt pans, which I don't have. (I don't even have a regular-size bundt pan, but I'll get around to buying one of those someday.)

Anyway, Google led me to this chocolate date cake instead, and next thing I knew, I was defrosting butter and slicing up the leftover dates from Passover's charoset. An hour and a half later, I had delicious-smelling date cake, which I have just now eaten and determined that you know, dates aren't bad at all. The cake is rich and moist, and though it doesn't taste terribly strongly of dates, they lend a sweetness and depth to the cake it wouldn't have otherwise. I might even be willing to keep the little guys on hand more often now.

Comments

[fonticulus.livejournal.com]

I love chocolate and dates! I haven't had them together, but I think I'd like to try.

Dates are awesome with goat cheese. It makes me want to try a goat cheese whipped cream to go with the cake.

[nonelvis]

Ooh, I bet that'd be really good with it. That little extra bit of tang would go nicely with the chocolate.

[ms-prue.livejournal.com]

Gosh that looks rich! I've only just discovered dates in the last month or so, and they're now my go-to snack in lieu of chocolate. Haven't tried putting them in baked goods yet, though, because every time I get the urge to make sticky date pudding I'm at the end of the packet.

[nonelvis]

It's delicious, and strangely, even better cold.

[ms-prue.livejournal.com]

I guess if it's dense and moist, that makes sense. It would hold together better and get a really heavy mousse-like texture.
*drool*
Did you have it with icecream or cream?

[nonelvis]

It actually stays cakelike when you chill it; it's just more solid. And it never survived long enough to get eaten with ice cream or whipped cream, though I think fonticulus' suggestion of a goat cheese cream (maybe stirred into creme fraiche?) would work very well.