Nuts and Twigs

Bonnie asks for more of my whole wheat breakfast bread recipes. This is from the old edition of the Joy of Cooking. Warning: it's pretty fibrous (to my Chinese relations I call it 樹皮蛋糕, or tree bark cake).

Quick Bran Date Bread

• 2 cups chopped dates
• 2 cups boiling water
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup brown sugar or 1/2 cup molasses (I omit this; see below)
• 1 cup whole-grain flour
• 2 teaspoons double-acting baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup whole-grain flour
• 2 cups bran
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup or less chopped nutmeats
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Prepare dates.
• Pour boiling water over them.
• In a separate bowl, beat eggs until light.
• Add brown sugar or molasses slowly, beating constantly.
• When these ingredients are creamy, add half the cooled date mixture
• Add 1 cup flour, baking powder and baking soda.
• Add the remaining date mixture
• Add 1 cup flour, bran and vanilla.
• Add the nutmeats.
• Place the dough in lightly greased loaf pans.
  
• Bake 1 hour to 1/2 hours.

Two cups of dates seems almost as sweet as two cups of sugar, and I don't feel it needs to be any sweeter.