Date n Nut Cake

Date n Nut Cake:
Ingredients:
1 and a quarter cup pitted and coarsely chopped dates.
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup boiling water
In a bowl mix these three ingredients and let them stand while preparing the other ingredients.

Other Ingredients:
1 and a half cups flour
1/2 cup ground almonds…You can substitute the ground almond meal with 1/2 cup of plain flour.
1 and a half tsp baking powder
Mix these three ingredients.

You also need: 1/2 cup butter..softened
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla sugar/essence
2 eggs
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Method:
In a mixer, add the butter, sugar, vanilla and mix well until creamy.
Now add the eggs one at a time mixing well after each addition.
Set your mixture on low and add the dry ingredients alternating with the date mixture.
Finally mix in the nuts by hand.
Pour the mixture in a prepared pan, I used two 8 inch pans for this cake and bake in a preheated 350 degrees oven for about 40 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean when inserted.
Let the cake cool before frosting.
Plz note: I frosted this cake with chocolate ganache then the caramel frosting and topped with ganache scribbles.

For the Caramel frosting:
2 tbsp softened butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp milk
3/4 cup icing sugar
In a pot add the butter, brown sugar and place it on a low heat stove.
Once the sugar starts to melt, add the milk and bring it to a boil, mixing well.
Then remove it from the stove and let it cool.
Once cooled, add the icing sugar and mix well to avoid any lumps.
Pour over the chocolate ganache decorated cake.
Do the scribbles with chocolate ganache and top with date. You can just decorate the cake with the caramel frosting alone without any ganache.

Enjoy!!