Back to School Recipes: Date Bars | Sponsored

Hello Everyone!

Happy Belated National Day to all my Singaporean readers! I hope you guys enjoyed the NDP parade yesterday, be it at the actual location or on TV and are enjoying our jubilee weekend!

This is my fourth post for my collab with The Things We Cook! In case you didn't know, they've sent me a few recipes from their beautiful cookbook, which they have send me! It finally came in the mail yesterday so I was extremely excited!! 

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So in case you haven't read the previous posts, which you really should, this cook book carries loads of beautiful recipes that cater to many types of diets and tastes. Ranging from sugar free to vegan and these are perfect for small gatherings or even for your own meal prep which is what I'm going to do with this recipe! 

I'm going to do my spin on their Date Bar recipe. I didn't buy enough dates so I mixed in some figs because those apparently work pretty good too, though the texture won't be as smooth because of the seeds. I was told that prunes may work too but I'd definitely prefer using dates themselves because they're amazing! 

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I threw in my orange juice and then slowly simmered it as instructed. I would try this recipe with just the figs next time just to see how it turns out, but I'd remove the skin/rind  or maybe chop the figs up even more because the skin made it a little difficult to spread. But it does give a nice texture. 

Just so you know, this mixture makes an amazing bread spread. 

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I was just rather shocked by the amount of butter that went into the recipe.

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Mixed up my batter and flattened half of it as instructed! I kinda made a mistake by chopping the nuts too big so they became rather annoying when I was smoothening out the batter. I used cashews and almonds instead of walnuts because I'm not too fond of the taste of walnuts. I used a round pan/pie plate (I don't know what it's called) instead because I didn't have a square one that was big enough. 

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Looks pretty just like that! I wonder how this mixture would fair as a pie filling? But maybe with more chunks in it hehe. And if you're wondering, my estimate for half an inch was completely off and I was kinda wondering why we had to leave it out, until it was time to put on the top layer of dough..

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It turned out so crumbly... When they said gently press the dough in, they REALLY mean gentle because it's kinda squishy and it will start to bleed out from the dough if you press to hard, so I recommend rolling out small pieces and then placing them on top and as you gently place them down and press the dough together, the gooey centre oozes to the sides. 

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The wonderful masterpiece after it has come out of the oven! 

It looks like a delicious crumble, but it's not as sweet because I put in 1 cup instead of 1 1/2 cups of sugar. I found the sweetness to be just right because the figs and dates were super sweet by themselves. But if you want to go all out with the sugar, go right ahead! 

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I think these turned out pretty great! My parents seem to love them very much and they make great energy bars to bring out with you for a snack! I ended up packing some for W as well to let him try them out!

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So just incase you are wondering, I like to pack my bars in tin foil. I wrap them up individually and when I want to have one, I just grab one from the fridge and I'm good to go! It's really easy and you don't really need to carry a lunchbox with you. This does well in mini bite sizes too - I packed mini square ones for W and those are really convenient for a snack if you're hungry and have no time for a meal or even in between meals or something! 

I hope you guys have enjoyed this post! I loved making this recipe and it was pretty easy, though the 'filling' was rather time consuming but it's really worth it! You don't need to eat loads of this to feel satisfied because the bars are pretty dense and they're really yummy! Do give this a go and don't forget to tag me and TTWC on instagram if you try any of the recipes I've tried!! Till my next blogpost! 

xx

Shayn