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Date Pudding (Pkg dates rounding T flour t)
3 eggs. 1 C brown sugar. 1 C walnuts. 1 pkg. dates 3 rounding T flour 1 t baking powder Beat eggs without separating; add the other ingredients. Bake in a slow oven, about 40 minutes, or until dark brown in color. Break into small pieces, put into serving dishes. Pile flavored whipped cream on top.
Esther Dillon Sullivan.
A church-supper date torte written in the shorthand of a contributor who assumed everyone knew the dish. The ingredient list as printed is incomplete — the method calls for eggs that never appear in the list, and no sugar is given at all, though this style of pudding always contains it.
- The missing ingredientsThe line "beat eggs without separating" has no eggs above it, and there is no sugar or nuts listed. Date tortes of this general type commonly run to something like 3 eggs, a cup of sugar and a cup of chopped nuts; treat any figure as reconstruction, not the original.
- A package of datesA "package" would have meant whatever standard grocery carton of pitted dates was on the shelf; these ran to a pound or to smaller cartons, so the quantity is not recoverable. Buy 8 oz pitted dates and chop them; modern dates are softer and stickier than pressed block dates, so toss them with a spoonful of the flour to keep them separate.
- Rounding tablespoonsA rounding tablespoon is usually reckoned at something like one and a half level ones, so 3 rounding tablespoons of flour comes out around 4 to 5 level tablespoons — roughly a third of a cup. That is barely enough batter to hold the fruit together.
- Slow ovenRoughly 300F, within the usual slow-oven range of about 250-325F. At that temperature 40 minutes suits a shallow layer; the recipe names no pan, so any shallow dish that gives a thin layer will do. The surface should be dark and dry.
- "Break into small pieces"This is deliberate, not a rescue for a failed pudding. The baked sheet is meant to be torn or crumbled and heaped into dishes, so do not aim for a clean-cut cake.
- Flavored whipped creamMost likely cream whipped with a little powdered sugar and vanilla; "flavored" could equally cover a spoonful of sherry or a drop of almond. Allow at least half a cup of cream for four servings, more if you want to pile it.
- YieldThe recipe gives no pan size and no fixed quantity of dates, so the yield is guesswork; a shallow dish of this will serve four to six, more if the crumbled pudding is layered into small glasses.
Date puddings and date tortes turn up constantly in American community cookbooks from roughly 1910 onward, and the reason is commercial: California's Coachella Valley date plantings are generally said to have begun bearing commercially in the early twentieth century, and packaged pitted dates became a reliable, shelf-stable grocery item. The dish belongs to a whole family of "tortes" date, apple, graham cracker built on eggs, sugar, nuts and a token spoonful of flour, baked flat, then broken up and served under whipped cream. Contributed recipes like this one, signed by a named parishioner, were the currency of church fundraising books.