Date Square

When I lived in Wellington in my student days some 30 odd years ago I used to buy this date square from a wonderful organic food place. It's still a goodie & universally loved. And it's very simple!

The date filling:
2 cups of dates
1 cup of sultanas (or just dates is fine)
Pour over 1/2 cup of boiling water & the juice of a lemon, mix together, cover & sit for several hours or over night until all the juice has been absorbed & the fruit is plump & moist.
You can also grate an apple in to the mix if you like or use any other combination of dried fruit.

300g butter........ cream together with the sugar & vanilla
1 cup brown or raw sugar
1 tsp natural vanilla essence
Then add:
3 cups rolled oats
2 cups wholemeal, spelt or mixed zentrofan type flour

Use as much of the flour as seems good at the time..you don't want it too dry or it will be crumbly.
You may need to work it all together with your hands.
Press half of the buttery mixture in to a deep slice tin, spread the date mixture evenly over the top & then crumble the remaining mix over that.
Press down firmly.

Bake at 180 degrees for 25-30 mins.
Cool in the tin.

As a little update- in  November 2018 -

After cooking some apple the other night with cinnamon, ginger, lemon zest, diced dried apricots & loads of raisins we decided that it was a bit strong & tasted rather like Christmas mince so here was our solution- much better! Just as delicious & simple as it always was.

Catherine