Date and Nut Bars

These Date and Nut Bars have a crumbly, buttery pastry encasing a gorgeous filling of dates, walnuts, cranberries and pistachios. Absolutely delicious and such a pleasure to make!

During the back to back rainy days, we have been experiencing, I've been on a non-stop baking roll. It's a sure-fire way to combat any rainy day blues! The last few sessions in particular have been all about pastry, which is how these wonderfully addictive  Date and Nut Bars came about.

Filling - 

Cranberries & dates are the stars of the filling. The sweet-tart taste of the cranberries balanced the sticky caramel-like sweetness of dates beautifully. Little honey, lemon juice and nuts added so much flavour and texture. It's a hearty filling, sweet, but not cloyingly so.

Pastry - 

Now to the crumbly, buttery pastry that encases this gorgeous filling. Its made with a combination of whole wheat and buckwheat that turned out so darned good. I got a rather soft and delicate shortcrust pastry. Rolling it out was a tad tricky, so I rolled the dough between two sheets of baking paper. It really made the process super easy and mess-free!

Now that we have talked about the ingredients, lets get into the process.

Making the Date and Nut Bars

Making the pastry

• Place the flour, sugar, and butter in a large bowl. Using your fingertips, rub the butter into the flour, until the mixture resembles pea-sized clumps.
• Add the ice-cold water, 1 Tbsp at a time,  bring the mixture together until a soft dough is formed.
• Pat it in a round shape and wrap it with cling wrap. Place in the refrigerator for 30 mins. While it cools, make the filling.

Making the filling 

• Place the chopped dates, cranberries, lemon juice and water in a small saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring constantly.
• Remove from the heat. Add in the nuts and honey. Set aside and leave to cool.

Assembling the Date and Nut Bars

• Divide the dough in half and roll out each half in a rectangle, roughly 12"* 8" in size. I rolled each half in between two sheets of baking paper to avoid any dough breakage as buckwheat does make the dough a bit crumbly. It worked very well, though I got two ovals instead! Oh well...
• Spread the date mixture on one rectangle/oval, leave about 1 cm edge all around. Wet the edge lightly with water. Carefully place the other rectangle over.
• Press to seal the edges. Score the pastry into 14 slices.
• Brush with milk and bake for about 20 -25 minutes at 180 C until golden. Brush with 1 tsp of honey while it's still hot.

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