Dates & chocolate cake

Enough of bad dates! The date cake is originally a Finnish Christmas specialty, but pimped with dark chocolate it makes a treat one can enjoy all year round. Caution! This cake requires some patience: is must be kept in the frigde for 2 days after baking and cooling down so that the taste really kicks in. But turn that around: it is the best stress avoidance cake when you have guests coming and no time to prepare. Bake the cake beforehand and just serve it when needed - it stays good for a week!

 Tip: as this cake is nice and moist, it makes a perfect base for cake pops

Ingredients

3 dl water
250 g pitted dates
85 g / 1 dl sugar
175 g butter
2 eggs
1 dl cold strong coffee
240 g / 4 dl baking flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoon vanilla sugar
100 g dark chocolate, grated

Preparation

Boil water, dates and sugar in a casserole for 5 minutes and blend into a fine paste. Add butter and let it melt, mix well and let the mixture cool down a bit.

Mix the dry ingredients - flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and vanilla sugar - in a separate bowl.

Constantly mixing the dough, add eggs one by one, then coffee, then the dry ingredients llttle by little, and finally the grated chocolate.

Pour the dough into a buttered ring-shaped cake mould (1,5 litres) and bake in 175C for 45-50 minutes. Test the cake with a wooden stick every 5 minutes after 40 minutes: it is done when no raw dough sticks to it.