There are few recipes with which you can play around,put your own stamp, tweak a bit here and there with the ingredients and so on; whereas there are few recipes,where you prefer to go  by the original taste and let it remain as pristine as possible ! This recipe qualifies into the second category for me.The recipe belongs to my friend Dwaipayan Dhar Chowdhury blogging at Food4thought .Dwaipayan is  one of the most passionate foodie I have ever met.We can chat hours on discussing about his and mine(actually more of his than mine ) latest acquisitions of cake tins and ramekins,recipes,cookery

books,experiments with unusual cooking ingredients and even some recipe’s socio-cultural history . He is a  passionate foodie ,a great cook and a mind blowing baker who apart from giving me a lot of important tips on baking ,taught me to replace butter with oil and have light ,moist and super soft cakes.If that’s not all I got the inspiration to blog from him.Wish he himself starts blogging more often.But then geniuses are like that,bit careless about themselves ,ain’t they?

This chocolate and tea infused date loaf spiked by the heavenly aroma of nutmeg and cinnamon is a tea lover’s delight.The dates make the loaf sweet at right places.This loaf is a cross between bread and cake.It’s not overtly sweet and remains moist for two-three days at a stretch if kept in air tight box.Before I leap into the recipe,got to say whenever I have made this loaf ,whoever have ate this ,asked me ‘what have you put in the cake..ummm it’s so good?’ Well ,there’s no secret ingredient.Trust me.Whenever I pass on this feedback to Dwaipayan about his recipe ,he says ”Its’s my recipe after all,got to be good ;)” ! Well whatever that means,I bow down to this magic baker friend of mine ,who taught me to be confident about baking.Much thanks to him 🙂

Ingredients

• All purpose flour/self raising flour  : 3/4 cup
• Cocoa powder :1/4 cup
• Baking powder :1 tablespoon
• Salt,a pinch
• Cinnamon powder :1/2 teaspoon
• Nutmeg powder: 1/2 teaspoon
• Vanilla essence :1 tablespoon
• Granulated sugar :1/2 cup
• Black tea :1 cup
• Eggs : 2
• White oil :1 cup
• Dates : Deseeded and chopped ,1/2 cup

Recipe:

• Preheat your oven at 180 degrees
• Sift the flour,cocoa powder,baking powder,salt,cinnamon powder and nutmeg powder together.
• Beat the eggs with sugar and oil .Keep the egg mixture aside.
• Put the chopped dates in black tea and boil this for 2 minutes.Do not let the dates to get mashy at this stage.Leave it to cool at room temperature.
• Now fold in the flour mixture with the egg mixture slowly with the help of wooden spoon.
• Add dates with tea in the egg and flour mixture and fold in slowly.
• Add vanilla in the cake batter.
• Grease and flour a loaf tin and  put the batter in that.
• Transfer the batter into the tin.Put the tin in the all ready preheated oven and bake the cake for 45-50 minutes or toothpick inserted in the middle of the loaf comes out clean.
• Take the loaf off the tin and keep it on a wired rack to cool down.
• Serve it with tea or coffee.
• Enjoy !