Date and Cherry Butter Bars

This week marks the final week of my yearlong quest to figure out what to do with my life. In fact, yesterday was the one year anniversary of my move to Michigan. On Tuesday, I begin a new chapter of my life in the Baking & Pastry Arts program at WCC. Exciting! (Also a little weird to be going back to school again… I had to buy notebooks! But, at least it was an excuse to buy a Lilly planner.)

While looking for some things to bake in this last week before classes start, I realized that I had not made any Mary Berry recipes in quite a while. I think the last one was the lemon yogurt cake back in March (yum!). In the beginning stages of this year’s baking journey, I watched a lot of The Great British Bake Off. Mary Berry was sort of my idol. She and Paul Hollywood taught me a lot about baking, empowering me to try new things and really improve my skills and knowledge. Thus, it seemed appropriate that, in this final week before my program starts, I bake one of Mary Berry’s recipes. I chose these date and cherry butter bars, partially due to the excess of dates and candied cherries still in my refrigerator from Christmas.

I began by chopping up my cherries and dates.

Next, I mixed up my flour and baking powder. The recipe actually calls for self-rising flour, which is something I just don’t usually keep on hand. But, it’s easy to make your own by mixing 1 cup all-purpose flour, 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, and 1/4 teaspoon salt. For the butter bars, I actually made 1 1/2 times this self-rising flour recipe and that gave me just a little more than the 8 oz of self-rising flour that I needed.

I added the butter. Gotta have butter to make butter bars!

Using my hands, I rubbed the butter into the flour mixture until it resembled course crumbs.

Then, I mixed in the sugar. The original recipe called for caster sugar, another ingredient that I don’t tend to have on hand. I used granulated sugar and it worked out just fine.

To this mixture, I added the dates and cherries.

I mixed it all up. It actually helped to use my hands for some of the mixing in order to break up any clumps of dates or cherries.

Finally, I added the beaten egg.

I mixed it up a bit with the spoon…

…before using my hands to bring it together. I kneaded it just briefly to make a smooth dough. It smelled delicious! Reminiscent of Christmas sugar cookies.

I pressed this into a buttered pan. The recipe actually calls for a 12″ by 9″ pan. The closest thing I had was 13″ by 9″, which I had originally intended to use. However, after finding out how much dough I had, it just didn’t seem feasible to stretch it any further than the recipe’s 12″ by 9″ pan. So, I decided to make some thicker bars and go for an 8″ by 8″ pan.

I baked them for 10 minutes before removing them from the oven for slicing. This process of slicing before finishing the bake ensures that the bars, which will turn out rather crumbly, can be cut without crumbling.

They were a bit difficult to slice due to the gooeyness at this point in the bake. But, I managed alright. And they smelled amazing!

I put them back in the oven to bake for another 12 minutes, rotating before the last 2 minutes to even out the bake.

After removing them from the oven, I cut the bars again. I allowed them to cool completely before removing them from the pan.

They were delicious! Crumbly and buttery with a nice added flavor and chewy textural element from the dates and cherries. Thank you, Mary Berry!

 

(Adapted from Mary Berry’s Baking Bible)

Ingredients

• 8 oz self-rising flour (or use 8 oz of recipe below; I needed almost 1 1/2 times the recipe)
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 3 oz unsalted butter, cold
• 4 oz granulated sugar
• 3 oz chopped dates
• 1 oz chopped candied cherries
• 1 large egg, beaten

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
• Butter 8″ by 8″ baking dish.
• Mix flour and baking powder.
• Rub in flour until mixture resembles course crumbs.
• Mix in sugar, chopped dates, and chopped cherries. Use hands as necessary to break up clumps.
• Mix in beaten egg.
• Use hands to bring together into a dough. Knead lightly until smooth.
• Press into buttered 8″ by 8″ dish.
• Bake for 10 minutes.
• Remove from oven and slice into bars.
• Return to oven until just beginning to brown, about 12 more minutes, rotating as necessary to achieve even bake.
• Remove from oven and re-slice bars.
• Allow to cool completely in pan.

 

Self-Rising Flour

(Make as much as necessary for any recipe that requires self-rising flour. You could even make a big batch to have on hand!)

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt