Date and Almond Loaf

Free range eggs are fairly expensive so when we broke one making poached eggs for breakfast this loaf was the answer. It is adapted slightly from a recipe in Alison Holst's 'Good Food' book. Alison's recipe contains walnuts instead of almonds and has no banana.



75g of butter, cubed
1 cup of dates, pitted and chopped
3/4 of a cup of brown sugar
The zest of an orange or lemon, chopped
1 cup of boiling water
1 egg
2 1/4 cups of plain flour
3 teaspoons of baking powder
1/2 a teaspoon of salt
1 70g packet of almonds, chopped
1 banana, mashed

Put the cubed butter into a mixing bowl with the dates, brown sugar and orange zest. Pour over the boiling water and leave to stand for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally until the butter melts. Cool to room temperature before adding the other ingredients. While the date mixture is standing prepare the tin and the other ingredients. Beat the egg in a small bowl until frothy. Measure the remaining ingredients into a bowl and combine well. Tip the beaten egg and combined dry ingredients on top of the cooled date mixture and fold in until just combined and damp (do not over mix).
Line the bottom of a loaf tin with baking paper and tip the mixture into the tin. Bake at 180C for about an hour until a wooden skewer inserted into the middle of the loaf comes out clean. Yum.