Baking >

Date squares are a simple starter recipe which require little knowledge, few tools, few and cheap ingredients and very little bravery.

The payoff is big! This makes a great, sweet, dessert.

Although this is quite thorough, there are subtleties you will need to discover for yourself. I will not be sharing my secrets!

Allergy warning ∞

Always read all ingredients. For example, my dates may contain nuts.

Tools ∞

Medium-sized sauce pan
Oven that can reach 350°F (175°C)
Large mixing bowl
- It's fine if it's still damp from being recently washed.
A spatula
- You can probably use a wooden spoon.
- You can probably use an everyday spoon, but be careful not to scratch your pan and tray!
1/4 cup measuring cup
- You may be better off with a 1/3 cup measuring cup for the crust ingredients, and a 1/3 cup measuring cup for the filling ingredients.
1/2 teaspoon measuring spoon
Small/medium-sized baking pan
- I use an 8 x 8 x 2 inch Wilton Perfect Results Cake Pan
- It's fine if it's still damp from being recently washed.
An electric hand-mixer.
Baking mitts.

TODO - more carefully note what measuring things I use, and what gets wet/etc.

Ingredients ∞

(for all steps)

1/2 lb (250g) dates
- The ones I get come in 500g-blocks, so this is easy.
3/4 cup butter (3/4 a brick)

On butter

The ones I get come in 2-cup blocks and are measured so you can easily cut the whole block into 3/4.

I use unsalted butter, but salt is a separate ingredient. I don't know if salted butter can be used instead, and I doubt it. TODO - Maybe if I did the math I could learn this.

It's ok to use less butter. I've made batches with only 1 cup of butter. I've made batches with a bit less than 1 cup of butter. The consequence is a less-browned crust which may be more crumbly.

It's easy to measure 3/4 of a brick if you can judge "half of something" easily. Lightly score the half-way point of the brick. Then take a side and cut down half of that. You are left with a large 3/4 and a small 1/4.

1 cup brown sugar
1 and 3/4 cups rolled oats
- I used 3-5 minute oats.
1 and 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda

Filling ∞

Add the dates into your sauce pan.
Add water to cover the dates.
Add 1/2 cup of the brown sugar. Stir a little, but don't worry about dissolving it.
Put the pot on the stove, bring it to a boil and then lower it to a simmer. Stir occasionally.
- You could speed up the process by keeping it at a harder boil, but it will spatter.
Keep the pot cooking until the water has mostly evaporated and you're satisfied with the mushiness of the dates. This is not exact.

knowing when the dates are done

You want them quite mushy to make it easier for you to cut the finished squares and to have an even taste and texture. Larger non-mushy pieces are annoying to cut through, but it's not really a big deal. You could mash the dates like mashed potatoes if you wished.

You want the filling to be quite "dry". It will never actually be dry, but will be a more-solid mush. You want this, because a too-wet filling will have more moisture in the finished squares. A tray with a moisture finished product will be looser than it needs to be, making it harder to flip. More moisture will freeze with more water, making a frozen-square "colder" and more ice cream sandwich-like. Maybe you like that, but I don't.

You know the water has evaporated enough when you scrape the bottom and you hear a little sizzle.

It's perfectly ok to add more water and keep cooking even more. I don't know the consequences of "over cooking". I don't even know if it's possible.

It is possible to "burn" the dates, making them caramelize a bit. I've been told this is tasty, but I don't like this and it burned a good layer of carbon into the bottom of my pan. Maybe if I get this right I'll experiment with it, but that's not likely to happen.

Turn the heat off and set the pan aside, on a cool part of the stove, to let the filling cool in that same pan.

on cooling the filling

The filling should be prepared a little ahead of time to give it time to cool a bit.

I've found it's okay if the filling is still warm to the touch. It spreads nicely that way. However, a too-warm filling will melt and change the consistency of the crusts. The top crust may also be difficult to spread if the filling is too warm.

You can prepare your filling well ahead of time, but do refrigerate it. I don't know how long the filling will stay good for, but because it's boiled down and has quite a lot of sugar, it should last a few days. You can probably freeze it for weeks.

Never put warm food in the fridge or freezer.
It will heat up the other foods, possibly spoiling them. Dairy is sensitive, your eggs will spoil early, and bacteria will come to life on your meat. Also, your appliance will also be overworked to remove that heat.

If you do end up putting them in the fridge, you will have to warm it back up so it can be spread easily.

Frozen food should always be defrosted in your fridge, or immediately defrosted and used. Never leave something frozen on the counter to defrost, or bacteria will run rampant.

I've made the filling, and had it sit aside in the same pan while I make the crust, and then quickly spread the filling onto the bottom crust, topped it with the top crust and baked it immediately. This is possible, but requires speed and expertise.

Crust ∞

Top and bottom crusts:

Cream the butter ∞

Little by little, add your butter to your large mixing bowl.
As you add more, use your mixer at a low setting to blend it until it's smooth.
You will notice its consistency change to be more "fluffy". Once all butter has been added, add your sugar and mix it well.

notes

Your sugar must be clump-free. Solid clumps or large grains will not break apart or "dissolve".

Your butter must be soft, since you're going to be mixing it. It is incredibly difficult cream too-cool butter.

Leaving your butter out is perfectly safe, it won't go bad, probably for weeks, unless it's hot and then it will melt and be inappropriate for this recipe. A good day outside your fridge will make your mutter much softer and easier to work with. If you don't have much time, then cut your butter into pieces to help it warm faster.

Warming butter in a microwave is possible, but read your microwave's instruction manual and learn to do that properly. Unwrap it, put it on a tray or plate, and microwave on LOW perhaps for a minute. Check frequently and make damned sure it doesn't wet the bottom of your tray. Melted butter is basically ruined and cannot be used for this recipe, even if re-cooled.

Use an electric mixer. Creaming the butter by hand is VERY difficult. I've done it, and it takes a very long time and is exhausting.

Use a mixing bowl that's as large as you can get, and especially one with steep walls. Your butter will go flying everywhere in a smaller bowl. I was stuck with a small bowl for a long time, and I learned to use my hand like a shield. It mostly worked.

If you want to avoid creaming, you could make the crust for the sugar-free vegan date squares. You could also also add sugar to that. I've never tried either.

The rest ∞

In your large mixing bowl (what you just creamed your butter in):

Add 1 and 3/4 cups rolled oats
Add 1 and 1/2 cups flour
Add 1/2 cup of brown sugar

In your 1/4 cup measuring cup:

Add 1/2 teaspoon salt
Add 1 teaspoon baking soda
Add 2 tablespoons of hot water
Stir a little with the 1/4 teaspoon to try to dissolve it a bit. Add it to the mixing bowl.

Mix it all together.

On mixing with your hands

Clearly, your hands must be clean, especially under your nails.

I use my fingertips and scratch from the outside in, and fold it over top of the middle, then run my fingers across the middle area to squish it down. Do what you feel is right.

The end consistency will be very buttery. You might be tempted to add a little more flour, but don't.

Cleaning your hands will be difficult. To remove excess material, to put back in the bowl, you can use the fingers from one hand to scrape the butter from the other.

To wash them, use a lot of soap and quite-warm water. Wash multiple times if you must. Try not to leave butter all over everything you touch.

Assemble ∞

TODO - describe the art of dropping crumbles and patting them down. Thickness as determines by it sticking to the back of your knuckles and coming up off of a non-stick pan.

Sprinkle roughly half of the crust mixture onto the bottom of the baking pan.
Place the date filling, given below, on top of this
- This is a bit of a trick! First you should use a spoon and roughly dollop a bunch of mounds throughout the top surface. Then you need to mash them down a bit to widen each dollop. Then you need to smooth them out. There's no real way to know how thick you're spreading things, so you just have to have a bit of a feel for things. You don't need to be exact, but it's best to take your time with this step.
- You must be absolutely certain none of the filling touches the sides of the pan! Any filling will harden and stick to the side, making cutting or flipping it out a completely disaster.
Spread the remaining half of the crust mixture on the filling.
- I dissolved a tablespoon of corn starch in 1/2 a cup of water and sprinkled it over the top to help harden the top layer. I think I'd use a spray bottle to do this next time. I think it really did help. I'd like to do this to the bottom layer as well somehow, or just add corn starch into the filling mix directly. I'm not sure..

Cook ∞

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Bake at 350°F (175°C) for about minutes or until the the top gets browner.
- You can check to see if you're overcooking by taking it out and then looking at the sides. If there is a part where there is some filling touching the sides of your pan, you can see how dried out that part gets. If it hardens and sticks to the sides then you're overcooking.
- I've had good success with browning it at the end, by putting my oven on broil for a minute. Be careful not to burn it!
Remove it from the oven and let it cool before you cut it.
- It can be cut while cool, but cutting it while hot is unreasonable. If the filling is warm it'll fall apart easily.

Variations ∞

I've omitted the salt and it's turned out well.
I've omitted the baking soda and it's turned out well.
When creating the bottom layer, make a "wall" along the sides of your pan. You're essentially surrounding your filling on all sides, making a pseudo-pie. Since the filling is much stickier, this also helps removing the finished product from its pan.
I used to cut the dates apart before cooking them, but I found that I didn't need to. I just added a little bit more water. Cutting may save cooking time (and energy), but I'm not convinced of that.
A toaster oven works
- But you'd probably have to bake the squares in smaller batches for smaller containers.
- Temperature is usually a big problem in toaster ovens. For my testing, I've had to turn up the temperature quite a lot.
Using a non-stick baking pan was a miraculous change from baking in glass pans.
- Non-stick let me turn the cooled product over and completely remove it with only a little buttery residue. Glass was a nightmare.
- It also really helps to make sure that the filling doesn't touch the sides of the pan.
I've made more date paste, and that is a bad idea.
- It will act like a sandwich with too much slippery filling, and the top/bottom crusts will slip. The experience of eating these is that they will break apart or otherwise squish the filling out while eating.

More crust ∞

People love the crust, and have asked for more. It's simple to scale up those ingredients but the results are awful. Here is the math if you want to try, based around using a whole brick of butter and not just 3/4 of one.

	Regular	Large
Butter	3/4 a brick	1 brick
Sugar	1/2 cup	2/3 cup
Oats	1 3/4 cup	2 1/3 cup
Flour	1 1/4 cup	1 2/3 cup

My process ∞

Assemble all tools
Assemble all ingredients
Begin two batches of filling in two different pans
Make my first batch of crust
Crudely separate the crust into two halves.
Spread the two halves into the two baking trays
Put both baking trays in the fridge.
Finish cooking the filling.
Remove the filling from heat.
Preheat the oven.
Make my second batch of crust
Crudely separate the crust into two halves.
Remove the baking trays from the fridge.
Spread the filling into the two baking trays
Spread the top layer (which has not been refrigerated)
Wait for the oven to be pre-heated
Cook the date squares, setting a 33 minute timer.
Return when the timer goes off, and check occasionally until I'm satisfied.
Implement proprietary finishing touches.
- My date squares are especially awesome, because magic.

Resources ∞

Mom's Date Squares Recipes

spiralofhope

Date squares