We did a cleanout of our pantry recently and rounded up forgotten bits and pieces that we needed to make use of or throw out once and for all. Although she was still quite stiff and sore, Jac had been itching to do something other than just lie on the couch watching DVDs. As I wouldn’t let her do any gardening yet (she protested of course, but I know she knew herself that it wasn’t a good idea), she had to look for slightly less physical activities to do around the house. Having unearthed an assortment of ingredients which we’ve now flagged for use asap, Jac suggested we bake something to use up the dates and nuts. She found a recipe that sounded yummy – caramel, date and walnut slice – in The Nyamutin Farm Cookbook, published by the Muscular Dystrophy Research Association of Western Australia (page 70, no publication date, possibly late 1970s).

We used whatever nuts we had on hand, which happened to be a mixture of chopped walnuts and crushed peanuts. We had unearthed some flaked almonds that had been buried right at the back, but they were um, very very very VERY old. :) Instead of making lemon icing as suggested in the recipe (interestingly, the book didn’t provide a lemon icing recipe – I could’ve easily dug up a recipe from another of Jac’s cook books, or done a quick search online) I used the extra chocolate icing left over from VR’s birthday cake. This was good because the chocolate icing was already made, it wouldn’t go to waste and of course – importantly – it was really yummy icing! You could ice the slice with whatever you like, really. I left some of it un-iced, just for a bit of variation, and it tasted really good plain too. The recipe is one of the easiest ever – good for lazy cooks! The caramel and nuts combine to give the slice a really tasty chewiness (though overall it’s a crumbly rather than chewy slice), and of course caramel and dates are nice and sweet. Really yummy with a cuppa. Mmmm.