Date Bread in a CrockPot. When You Need Something to Sit on.

Yes, I know it looks like a prehistoric bowling ball. Or perhaps a pouffe from Professor Trelawney's classroom.  But trust me here. This date bread is to die for. Or as our friends in New Jersey would say, "To doy foa."

(don't ask)

Hello my darlings.

This summer has been stressful. Most recently because my buttox has disappeared as a result of lying around trying to recover from a back injury, and now my pants fall off when I stand up. This isn't a new thing for me. I was born with a rare defect called Buttus Interruptus, and it don't matter how much weight I gain, there's never nothin' for me to sit on. FURTHERMORE, since I have given birth to children and my tush now has to spread the entire width of my post-four-babies-hips, I have to exercise DAILY, or I'm just literally sitting on the fronts of my thighs. Like, there's nothing there.

 I wouldn't mind so much, but I have a suspicion that this time my tuckus has snuck off and is having the time of its life, leaving me here to rot. If my booty is shaking on some exotic foreign dance floor, I want to be there with it. Not here trying to figure out how to hold up my pants without re-spraining my back. Maybe I need to take a leaf out of the books of 18 year-old skater-dudes and duct-tape my pants to my thighs. (Yes, I just recycled a joke from my post over on Challenging the Gnome. THAT'S HOW DESPERATE MY BUTTLESSNESS HAS MADE ME.)

Needless to say, posterior-deficiency does not make me feel attractive to the opposite sex, mainly of whom is my husband. He says he doesn't care. But (no pun intended) I do. So tonight, I decided to do a little baking to see if I couldn't eat the baked goods and coax some calories onto the back of my front.

Okay, I'm not being serious. For reals, I decided to bake because my friend Robin and my new friend April (a.k.a., Murphala) have both been cooking up breads in their crockpots and I am sick of sitting here, so I thought I'd try it too. And Hot-Diggity-Dog if it didn't work! (Which is to say, it did. In case you don't understand cool-woman-of-a-certain-age speak.)

The recipe I used is a family favorite, and true to form, my kidlets devoured it. Date bread. And it is DElish. Like, it's great eaten straight up, with milk poured over it, warm with ice cream, or hot with a bit of English hard sauce dribbled on. In short, Date Bread is serious yummage. 

Now why cook it in a crockpot? Well, numero uno, it doesn't heat up your kitchen. And when you are without your A/C, as we have been for most of a week, and it's 100 degrees outside, this is a good thing. And numero dos, see numero uno. Also, it's fun. And you can forget about it for a couple of hours. And it's fun.

So, without further prattle, here's the recipe. Enjoy!

Tush-Enhancing Date Bread

2 cups chopped dates

2 tsp. baking soda

1 1/2 cups boiling water

1 cup sugar

5 Tbsp. softened butter

1 egg

2 tsp. vanilla

3 cups flour

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking powder

1 cup chopped nuts

-Combine boiled water with dates and baking soda. Watch the über-cool scientific reaction. Set aside.

-Cream butter and sugar in a mixer. Or do it by hand. But this seems really inefficient. Add egg and vanilla and beat until fluffy.

-Measure flour into a separate bowl. Add salt and baking powder. Alternate adding flour and date mixture (remember that?) to the creamed butter and sugar. Mix in nuts. Except we never do.

-Now here's where you get to decide, "Am I baking this in the oven, or being creative with my crockpot?"

—If you're using the boring oven, preheat to 350 degrees F. Pour your bread batter into a lovely loaf pan and bake for 1 hour & 10-20 minutes. Subject loaf to toothpick test to check for doneness. Mine goes long. Also, this is a really old recipe and doesn't say to grease the pan. But I don't think it would hurt to grease the bottom.

—If you're using the exciting crockpot, place a trivet or several canning lid rings in the bottom of your crockpot. Pour in 1 cup of water. Find a glass or metal pan or bowl that fits into your crockpot. Grease it. Pour the bread batter into the greased pan. Place the pan in the pot on top of the rings. Cover the crockpot and cook on high for 3-4 hours. I think the exact time will depend upon your altitude. When I lived in Maryland and Indiana this bread cooked faster. Out here clear up in the stratosphere it takes longer. Insert a knife in the center to check for doneness. 

You want photographic evidence? Here's what the Date Bread looked like whilst cooking:

Potted Date Bread, steaming away. 

Un-lid-ified. See how it's cooking around the edges? Lovely. You should never take the lid off while the bread is cooking. It lets all the heat out.

See the little lids sitting in the water beneath my bready casserole dish? Yep. That's how it works. Again, don't take the lid off mid-cook. Bad chef!

Hi! Remember me? I'm the finished Date Bread loaf. Except I look like a ball, which is exciting and different. I stuck to the dish a little bit but nobody cared because of my deliciosity. Next time we'll grease-up more. Oh, you noticed my scraggly bottom? No, I'm not doing a Janiel-Impression (that's not very nice!) Well, I spilled over the edges a bit because I need a 1.5 quart dish to cook in instead of a 1 quart. So I looked like a giant cupcake when I came out of the pot and Janiel tried to cut the edges off and make me look pretty. But really she was just cutting the edges off so she could eat them before the fam came home. Because she LOVES this bread.

Right. That's enough silliness. This was a lot of fun. The bread was nummy. And I'd love for you to try it! You can't have mine because my kids ate it all. So make your own.  🙂 Hearts! Enjoy!