It’s simple to make and utterly lovely to eat this luscious date-nut bread. The flavor is greatly improved by the secret ingredient.
| Prep Time: | 30 mins |
| Cook Time: | 1 hr |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 30 mins |
| Servings: | 20 |
| Yield: | 2 – 8×4 inch loaves |
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 2 cups white sugar
- ¼ cup shortening
- 2 eggs
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ cup chopped walnuts
- 1 ½ cups chopped pitted dates
- 1 ¾ cups hot brewed coffee (secret ingredient)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour two 8×4 inch loaf pans, or line with parchment paper.
- Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a bowl, and set aside. In a large bowl, mix together the sugar and shortening. Beat in the eggs and vanilla. Toss the walnuts and dates with the dry ingredients, and stir into the sugar mixture alternately with the hot coffee. Divide the batter evenly between the two loaf pans.
- Bake for 1 hour in the preheated oven, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 234 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 45 g |
| Cholesterol | 19 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 2 g |
| Protein | 3 g |
| Saturated Fat | 1 g |
| Sodium | 212 mg |
| Sugars | 29 g |
| Fat | 5 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
I made this today and was so disappointed. The coffee did add depth of flavor w/o being “coffee” but with only 1/4 cup shortening, this came out so very dry, it lost a lot of appeal and flavor. I doubt I will save the loaves — what a waste of otherwise great ingredients that included fresh medjool dates. Can someone comment on why this recipe uses one 1/4 cup shortning with 3 cups of flour. Sad….
I wanted this to be so good but it wasn’t. There just wasn’t any taste to it. I still have some dates so I’m off to find another recipe. (The coffee was a fun add tho.)
Perfect consistency and the coffee added a nice flavor! I made a few minor substitutions, butter for the shortening, pecans for the walnuts, 1 cup whole wheat flour for 1 cup of the white, and I also added some spices (cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg). The only thing I might change next time is to reduce the sugar by at least a 1/2 cup – 2 cups plus the dates made it slightly too sweet for my taste. But some unsweetened whipped cream helped take the edge off!
There is no way that you should put 1 3/4 cup of coffee in this cake. Way too liquidy. I put in a bit more than 3/4 of coffee and it was sufficient. Also brought the heat to 375f and baked for 40-45 minutes. Maybe next time would add more nuts. Liked the end results. Thanks.
Prepared batter exactly as directed, except I doubled the walnuts. I thought the batter had too much liquid, but it backed up nice and moist. I did pull it out of the oven at about 47 minutes. Very good, especially with cream cheese on it!
Great recipe! Not sure what the issue was with the reviewer who indicated that the recipe is “tempermental.” I followed the directions to the letter and had no problems at all – it is fairly easy to make. I did withhold about 2 tbsp of coffee at the final mixing stage, based on other reviews indicating that the mixture was too thin. I believe it would have been fine to add it and would have made this great bread even moister. The coffee flavor adds such a nice touch. Yummy and wonderful, especially for the holidays. Thanks for sharing this, Lauren!
An excellent quick bread with a unique secret ingredient! I used 3/4 cup sugar as my dates were moist and sweet (medjools). I would cut the coffee with water when I bake this again. I brew VERY strong coffee with dark roast beans. The coffee flavor was quite pronounced. A more dilute coffee flavor might better enhance the date/nut flavor of the bread. Thank you to Lauren and her Great Nana!
I made this for a gathering at work and everyone was asking around to find out who made it. It was all gone in a matter of minutes. Super moist and delicious. The coffee adds a certain something to the flavor that makes all the difference.
WONDERFUL! Change nothing! This is absolutely THE BEST date nut bread I’ve been blessed to make and enjoy-wow! My hubby and kids loved it too. Froze 2nd loaf for quick breakfast treat when school starts next week. Adding to my FAVORITES collection for sure. Thank you for sharing your greatt Nana’s “secret” with us. BLESSINGS!
This is a DELICIOUS recipe. I really enjoyed the coffee flavor in the background! I substituted pecans (just don’t care for walnuts) and next time I would add just about 1/4-1/2 cup extra flour, as the center of the loaf collapsed while cooking. I also let my date chunks sit in the coffee for about 15 minutes & in that time, they pretty much dissolved – which made a very smooth batter. Flavor is superb. Very easy to make. Thanks for posting it!
yummy, what a nice date bread! i brewed fresh ground 8 o’clock columbian coffee, substituted 1 cup all-purpose flour with whole wheat flour & used pecans in place of walnuts (what i had on hand). great flavor eaten as is or with cream cheese. thanks for your great nana’s recipe, lauren!
The cake was extremely temperamental. It seemed like there was too much liquid to be absorbed, so instead of using the whole 1 3/4 cups of coffee, only used one. It was still very liquidy. Instead of baking it for an hour, I soon realized the cakes were browning way too fast, and had to shorten the time to 40 minutes, at 150 C. The taste was similar to the tradiotional Jewish honey-cake. Since I don’t like that cake, I didn’t like this cake either. I presume date-lovers will love it, since I was very moist and sweet, but overall- I wouldn’t make it again.
this is a very tasty and moist bread. I do not put nuts in though, don’t care for them. flavorful and very nice with some butter. delicious! a real keeper for sure!
Good tasting recipe. I used half flour and half whole-wheat flour in my test. My kids made this in small loaves for teachers gifts at Christmas.
This was delicious! I also halved the recipe the first time and I ground the walnuts rather than chopped them. The bread was moist and had the coffee flavor in the background. A keeper!