Recipe | Food for the Gods

Christmas is just around the corner. Do you already have prepared list of food to serve for Noche Buena and Christmas Day? Our small family of three will go a little simple this year - I am thinking of preparing Bruschetta for Noche Buena as we don't really eat a lot during that time. For Christmas lunch, I am thinking of cooking Cabbage Rolls, a pasta recipe, and cupcakes... but we still haven't done our grocery shopping, so all is still not sure as of this time.

Anyway, it is always during Christmastime when I got to eat Food for the Gods, and I consider it quite a favorite - maybe because I don't get to eat it as often as other baked goodies. When we bought the oven early this year, this was something I considered baking, but finding the dates became my biggest challenge.

Thankfully, SM Supermarket now has an aisle for baking ingredients and tools, and they now carry this brand - Dough it All. This brand was such a blessing for home bakers like me as I don't really need that much supplies. I was surprised to see a pack of pitted dates in one of our grocery days, so then I knew the time has come for me to try and baked this awesome holiday delight.



Food for the Gods
{makes 1 pan}

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup butter or margarine
• 1 cup chopped walnuts
• 1 cup chopped pitted dates
• 3/4 cup loosely packed brown sugar
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 3 eggs

How to Bake:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
• In a bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Sift mixture into another bowl.
• From that mixture, get about 1/2 cup and dredge dates, so the dates won't settle on the bottom of the pan.
• On a separate bowl, cream butter and sugar.
• Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition.
• Stir in flour mixture into the wet mixture using wooden spoon.
• Stir in walnuts and dates, and mix until thoroughly combined.
• Grease baking pan with butter or oil - including the sides.
• Pour in batter into the baking pan and level.
• Bake initially for 10 minutes.
• After 10 minutes, lower oven's temperature to 300 degrees and bake further for about 15 minutes.
• Cool down the pan completely and cut according to your liking.
• Wrap the pieces into aluminum foil and cellophane wrapper.

As you can see, I didn't wrap my baked Food for the Gods anymore as it would be just three girls who would eat this, and it turned out to be delicious. One thing I would change should I bake this again was to finely chop the walnuts and dates, as I wanted the gritty feel to my Food for the Gods and not chunky the way this turned out.

This can be a good Christmas giveaway, or a good baked goodie to serve your family for Christmas. If you want to see the full video tutorial on how to bake this, please check Pinay Cooking Lessons video on YouTube.

*** Jenn ***