Recipe for a dry, underwhelming and turgid date slice please.

[Slubberdegullion]

Seriously.

I want it to hold its form at room temperature and to not really excite me at all.

All I want is a mild sensation of 'nice' and this is 'good for the bowels'.

The one in Good Food this month, following which I still have a hearty bag of chopped dates left over was TOO MUCH, even the dc are giving it a wide berth.

Steady there slubber.

That's the whole culture of English cooking up to the early eighties, isn't it. After which we got all foreign and over-engaged with our food.

I can't bring myself to fulfill that request. Use them to make sticky toffe pudding instead.

I do not want to be engaged with my date slice, I want the exact opposite, whatever that is orally.

No thank you to pudding suggestions.

No thank you to Delia's plums.

Somewhere out there must be a really tedious date slice recipe. That is what I want.

ok, my mary berry book offers up date and walnut traybake or date and cherry butter bars. I can't vouch for the levels of tedium invoked by either I'm afraid.

Thank you evilwem. I have that book and just looked at the tray bake. I think it's too snazzy. It has cinnamon in for a start. And Mary has turned into a total crazer with the GBBO. Fake eyelashes and acetate with the cakes.

No no it's all too much.

What I would like is a very dry layer of congealed oats, layer of obliterated dates, more oat dryness on the top. Not too sweet, no silly buggers sugar, no pistachios or chilli or another wank ingredient, and an firmness during the whole eating event. These Good Food ones bend ffs.

here you go. It's got wholemeal flour in and it's from a website called Towards Sustainability. Is that dull enough for you?

Thank you wem you are being very helpful. Towards Sustainability certainly sounds promising in the dull/regular opening of bowels dept.

You need a Cranks recipe. Anyone else old enough to remember their bloody disgusting wholesome food and incredibly thick stoneware crockery?

I thought it was prunes for "keeping you regular" as my DM would say.

Ooh I've got a cranks cookbook somewhere, from my brief dalliance with vegetarianism in the early 90s! Will go look..

Rose Elliot Date Slices?

Can I ask why you want a recipe for these?

Hello Norman. Because I want something that will
a) use up these chopped dates wot I have got
b) feed children in the back of the car whilst driving them between things and won't drop all over the sodding shop
c) for myself at 4pmeses without going beyond a level 2 (mild) oral stimulation. THINK DIGESTIVE but in a slice
d) provide roughage

I've had them somewhere is the past and I want them again.

Those Ose Elliot ones are looking just the ticket. Ta ItsAll

pmsl at THINK DIGESTIVE. There's a bit in one of the Bill Bryson books where he describes British biscuits in the 1970s as being like something you give a budgie to strengthen its beak.

Can't help on the recipe though I have in the past bought a supremely boring date slice from the local baker. Not sure what I was expecting really but it was entirely joyless.

Oh no I don't want entirely joyless. I want just the tiniest hint of restrained joy. Not even joy tbh, just steady satisfaction.

There is too much full throttle joy these days. The Red Queen is running amok in the biscuit aisle. It's time to say no more, with a nice date slice.

Any luck, Patricia?

I'm afraid these by Rachel Allen are very nice but they do use up dates well and don't have too many ingredients

www.flowersinthekitchen.co.uk/2009/05/rachel-allens-date-bars.html

No luck with cranks, but here!

www.cookeryclub.co.uk/recipe/630/oaty-date-slice-recipe

Described as "This Oaty Date Slice Recipe is a healthier slice of oats, seeds and dates cooked with minimum butter and sugar."

Sounds like a level 2 to me....

Goodness, Patricia, they look ... umm ... wholesome. And you can add bran, too!

The Rachel Allen ones appear in the photos to be exactly what I am after, although Patricia's added bran ones are most appealing in the dullard regular motion stakes. I like bran, and bran likes me

Thanks all.

Will have a stab at some of these and feedback.

using a food processor or chopper mush up a box of dates with same sort of quantity of walnuts. Add some finely chopped dark chocolate and a pinch of cinnamon. Mix it all up well. Using baking paper, line a small baking tray (or the type of trays bought flapjacks come in are good, too) and leave enough to fold over the top, too. Push the date & nut mixture into the baking tray and fold the paper over the top. Press well in, to help get weel shaped bars. You could score into slices/bars at this stage. Put into the freezer overnight. (Freezing does something to the fats in the nuts to help the bars set.) Take out of freezer and leave to defrost. Cut into bars and roll in cocoa powder & icing sugar, or bran if you like.

That's all you really need for that recipe, dates and walnuts. the rest is optional. I tried it and it worked, and it got both my children asking for more (one loves nuts and hates dried fruit, the other is t'other way around).

I knew this would be your thread.

I have no earthly idea why you would want such a recipe, or how to make the turgid date slices, but I would like to congratulate you on the best thread title I have read since Pearl Barley.