3 Holidays, 3 Vegan Recipes - Part 3

Wooot! We've made it to the final entry in our Holiday Edition recipes!

Today's treat is delicious Date Cake, perfect for celebrating Ramadan.

Part 1 - chocolate covered matzo for Passover

Part 2 - lamb-free lasagna for Easter

Dates are popular during Ramadan, the month-long observance during which Muslims don't eat or drink during daylight hours. When your nutrition intake is restricted to the hours between sunset and sunrise, it's important to get good calories, vitamins, and minerals - which dates have. Their sugar content gives

quality energy whilst the fiber content helps keep blood sugar stable.

Dates are also easy on the stomach, important when breaking a fast with large quantities of food in a short time.

And of course, dates are a key product of the Middle East, where Islam originated. (In fact, Mohammed apparently said "When one of you is fasting, he should break his fast with dates"!)

This date cake is easily vegan-friendly, and easy to make. Since I never remember to soak my dates, the directions call to boil water and soak them in that for 15 minutes; it's the same.

INGREDIENTS

• about 20 medium pitted dates. Remember how we are about measuring here, just like roughly 1 1/2 - 2 dozen dates is fine

• 1 cup date soaking water (if you don't have enough from your soak, add in oat milk to equal 1 cup of liquid) (or whatever non-dairy milk you like, but we like oat! it has a good footprint!)

• 1/2 cup brown sugar

• 1/4 cup white sugar

• 1 cup plain flour

• 1/4 cup vegetable oil

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• Optional: walnuts, or chocolate chips...caramel chips...peanut butter chips...

DIRECTIONS

1. Soak your dates in boiling water for 15-20 ish minutes.

2. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F

3. Blend the dates with the water or watermilk combo. Add more liquid if it has trouble blending, it'll be fine, we have fun.

4. Pour the date milk juice concoction into a mixing bowl. Add the sugars and oil.

5. In a separate bowl (if you're fancy), mix the baking soda and flour.

6. Add the dry mixture into the liquid and mix until just mixed. Mix. The word has lost all meaning.

7. Pour into a 8x8 inch cake pan or any kind of average-sized baking tin and bake for about 30 minutes, until golden and a toothpick comes out without goop. Check at 25 because it's better slightly undercooked in my opinion.

You know what would be great? Eating this with vanilla ice cream. Yes. Try that.