Date Cake with Chocolate Chip-Walnut-Crunchy Sugar Topping AKA Beaver Island Cake from @MysteryMacRae

 

AKA the recipe I’ve been looking for for approximately forty-seven years. Found it! Yay!

In 1976, my friend Deborah’s mother came for a visit and she brought date cake. She offered me a piece. I had no idea what a taste treat I was in for—moist cake with plenty of dates and a topping of chocolate chips, walnuts, and crunchy white sugar. It's one of the best pieces of cake I’ve ever had. I remembered it fondly for years. Then I shook off my reveries and went looking for the recipe. This was pre-internet, so the search was tough. Fruitless, too. I did ask Deborah if her mother might share the recipe. Sadly, enough years had passed that her mother had no memory of the cake. Since the advent of the internet, I'd occasionally look for that cake, but only came up with spice date cakes or chocolate date cakes or date cakes with chocolate chips stirred into it.

Until A.A. Milne’s birthday this year—January 18th—also known as Winnie-the-Pooh Day.

On that cold, gray, rainy day, I took a picture of my tiny, old Pooh Bear looking out the window and imagined him dreaming of cake. Another friend had just given me two bags of chopped dates, so I decided to take another stab at finding that glorious date cake. Perseverance wins! After scrolling past all the usual suspects, I spied a picture of a cake that looked exactly as I remembered that piece of Deborah’s mother’s cake in 1976. Interesting factoid—the recipe was apparently developed at the Beaver Island Lodge on Beaver Island in Lake Michigan. I haven’t verified this, but I’ve always wanted to visit Beaver Island, so maybe I should.  

Date Cake with Chocolate Chip-Walnut-Crunchy Sugar Topping AKA Beaver Island Cake

 

Ingredients for cake

1 ¼ teaspoons baking soda (divided)

1 ½ cups boiling water

½ pound chopped pitted dates

¾ cup unsalted butter at room temperature

¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated white sugar

2 eggs

¾ teaspoon salt

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

 

Ingredients for topping

¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated white sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

¾ cup chopped walnuts

8 ounces chocolate chips

 

Directions

Preheat oven to 350℉ and grease a 9x12 pan.

In a medium bowl, pour boiling water over dates and one teaspoon of the baking soda. Set aside to cool. One of the recipes I found called for using the date mixture while it’s hot. This melted the butter so that the batter was completely runny. That didn’t seem to matter to the taste, but it meant the topping sank almost out of sight. Very annoying. So, if you’re in a hurry, use the mixture hot or warm. Otherwise, let it cool. (After that annoyance, I waited a couple of weeks then made the cake again, this time letting the mixture cool. Success!)

In a second medium bowl, mix flour, salt, and remaining ¼ teaspoon of baking soda.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, stirring until thoroughly mixed.

Alternately add flour and date mixture to the butter mixture, stirring until just combines. Pour into prepared pan, spreading batter evenly to the corners.

Sprinkle top with the walnuts, then the chocolate chips. Stir the sugar and salt together and sprinkle over walnuts and chocolate chips.

Bake about 30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. (The same recipe that called for using the date mixture while it was hot said to bake the cake for 45 minutes. I didn’t fall for that and suggest you don’t either.)

Let cool, cut, and serve. MMMmmmm.

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Coming in less than a week!

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Who?

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Watch for a new series from Molly coming Kensington Publishing later this year or early next!

The Boston Globe says Molly MacRae writes “murder with a dose of drollery.” She’s the author of the award-winning, national bestselling Haunted Yarn Shop Mysteries and the Highland Bookshop Mysteries. As Margaret Welch, she writes books for Annie’s Fiction. Her short stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and she’s a winner of the Sherwood Anderson Award for Short Fiction. Visit Molly on Facebook and Pinterest and connect with her on Twitter  or Instagram.