Date Tray Bake {No Refined Sugars}

Using date paste in this tray bake gives you the softest, sweetest Date tray bake out there. Perfect for lunchboxes, mid morning snacks or afternoon pick me ups, this tray bake keeps well, travels well and tastes...yummy :)

Date Tray Bake

Being date lovers (I've told you that, right?!) means I don't only use our homemade date paste to make things sweeter and as a substitute for the refined sugars we used to eat but we also really love the taste of dates. So it made perfect sense to me to make a date tray bake. It's simple, it's easy, the dates keep the bake deliciously moist and a tray of this will not last you long.

I like to have this baked and ready if we have people coming over, instead of the shop bought cake I would have bought pre Clean eating.

I'm still slightly conscious that I have to make something awesome for people, as if I'm trying to prove Clean eating's awesome when they might think it's a sacrifice. It's crazy, I know, mainly because I really do think Clean eating's amazing, there's no sacrifice involved and it works for us. And yet still....

Anyway, this is the tray bake I make the most. Give it a try, you'll see what I mean.

If you're wanting to make a bake that's as close to the 'old' refined sugar cakes we all mostly loved, use coconut sugar in your recipe. While it's not something we eat all the time, I do use it now and again. Ultimately sugar's sugar and should really be limited but if we're going to eat it anyway, coconut sugars the way we go.

While there's not exactly a list of health benefits eating coconut sugar's going to give you, for me it's the fact that there's less processing that takes place as the coconut sugar goes from Palm tree to my pantry.

And I should also mention that coconut sugar contains the soluble fibre inulin, which both encourages certain bacteria (of the beneficial kind!) to grow and has been linked to the lower risk of blood sugar spikes.

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I'll also say that while I'm no nutritionist, I'm a Mom and one that wants to feed my kids Real food and not cut out food groups or promote faddy diets, I also think these benefits might be *pretty* marginal. So this is a treat bake and is treated as such. That's what I was trying to say!

When you're packing this for a lunchbox, because dates can be quite sticky I wrap this in parchment rather than food wrap. The parchment means it's easier for little hands to hold without ending up with sticky fingers too :)

Making Ahead And Storing

I make this cake and if there was any left, ever, it would keep for up to 3 days in an airtight container like this one. I suspect you could freeze this well but I've not tried as there's never any left to freeze.

If you want to try freezing this bake, I'd recommend cutting it into slices and wrapping it in parchment before you freeze it. Then to defrost, leave it out for a few hours on the kitchen work top to fully thaw, and you could pop it into the microwave for 30-60 seconds to take the chill off it if you liked.

If you do freeze this, let me know how it goes, I'd be interested to know!

More Date Recipes

• Old fashioned date cookies
• Homemade date paste
• Chocolate date energy balls
• Sticky date sauce
• No bake! Date slice

How To Make Date Tray Bake

Ingredients

• 2 Large Eggs
• 1 Cup Flour I used white Spelt, you can also use Einkorn or Buckwheat flour
• 1 Cup Butter Melted
• ½ Cup Coconut sugar
• ½ Cup Date paste See post for homemade date paste recipe
• 1 Handful Chopped dates
• 1 tsp Baking powder

Instructions

• Heat your oven to 190° and line a 6x6 inch baking tray with parchment paper or grease it with butter
• In a large mixing bowl add the butter and coconut sugar. Use beaters to whisk until light and fluffy
• Add the eggs and using a wooden spoon, combine well into the mixture. Add the date paste and combine
• Add the flour and baking powder and fold to the mixture is just combined. Try not to over mix the batter at this point
• Gently fold in the chopped dates
• Pour the batter into the lined baking tin and bake for 18-20 minutes until golden on top and a skewer inserted into it comes out clean
• Leave in the pan to cool down a little and set (so it doesn't break up) and then transfer it to a wire cooling rack. Leave it to cool completely before cutting into slices

Here's the Date Paste recipe

Date Tray Bake Recipe