Easy Date and Walnut Cake Recipe: Moist, Rich, and Perfect for Dessert Lovers

Moist date cake with walnuts

This date and walnut cake recipe cake is a classic combination of ingredients. The inherent sweetness of the soft dates contrasting against the crunchy nuts is a real treat. The cake is not something that you often see being sold in main stream supermarkets and shops, more the reason to make it at home, especially when entertaining and you want to wow your guests!

The cake has a different texture to a traditional sponge cake. It’s moist, full of succulent pieces of the dates melded into the sponge along with crumbly texture from the nuts. As I am a major chocolate lover, I could not resist adding in some chocolate. So the recipe now involves making a chocolate chip date cake. There’s only so many Victoria Sponge cakes you can eat! If you want to further indulge your chocolate sweet tooth, you can also try making my chocolate trifle.

The moist homemade date cake rises beautifully and looks very substantial as you can see from the pictures in the post. I can not believe that it only needed 2 eggs!

Where did the date and walnut cake recipe come from

This cake really evolved after Ramadan. It’s now been a good couple of weeks since Ramadan and we have been blessed with lots of gifts of tins and boxes of dates from family and friends. We do love eating dates, especially medjool dates which are my personal favourite. However I thought it might be a nice way to eat them by combining them into a cake. I seem to be majorly craving sweet dishes this year after Ramadan. For a bit of extra sweetness, I have added chocolate chips on top. The kids of course love a bit of chocolate!

Versatility of the chocolate chip date cake

Date cake is lovely and moist, the cake really has a unique flavour. I have added light brown sugar for a slight caramel flavour. However you could use all caster sugar if you prefer. Because of the sweetness of the dates the recipe only needs a small amount of sugar, making this a relative healthy cake to eat.

I have also used a mix almonds and walnuts in this recipe. However you could use all walnuts or almonds, whatever you prefer. The recipe is flexible to your taste.

You could also use margarine instead of butter.

There’s no need to cut the dates into small pieces, the food processor does this for you, which is a great time saver. If you can buy pitted dates, that’s even more optimal. However medjool dates are so soft, so it takes literally a couple of minutes to remove the pits.

If you wanted to make this in a loaf format, you could do this by halving the ingredients.

The addition of the chocolate chips is optional, you can leave this off. Or you could add a sprinkling of more chopped nuts on top instead.

Food processor vs whisking for this Date and Walnut Cake recipe

I use a large food processor to make this cake. It saves so much time and does not impact taste at all! I actually picked up this tip from Nigella Lawson. It saves having to cream the butter and sugar and add the ingredients steps by step. Also you avoid over whisking and having the cake sink during baking (I went through a phase of doing this when I was a sleep deprived mum and would be devastated to see a sunken cake after all my efforts. )

This method means all I do is literally put everything in the food processor and blitz. It also means there is no need to chop the dates beforehand either. I love to reduce preparation time, it just means I get to eat my cake quicker!

I have also added in instructions below for how to make the cake if you do not have a food processor big enough for the cake. Just in case you also prefer the traditional method of whisking, it’s entirely up to you.

I would definitely serve this cake with some tea, doodh patti would be perfect with it. If you could serve this cake warm (depending how organised you are!) you could even add a scoop of ice cream to your cake. I love desserts which have hot and warm on the same plate. However my hubby loves a bit of custard with his, the choice is really yours!

See my video on Youtube, Instagram or TikTok to see how to make this date and walnut cake recipe!

Ingredients for the Chocolate Chip Date Cake

Preparation 6 minutes

Cook time 60 minutes

• 500 grams of medjool dates, pitted (if you do not have a food processor, you will need to chop the dates)
• 1/4 tsp of bicarbonate of soda
• 275 ml boiling water
• 150 grams of butter (soft, at room temperature)
• 100 grams of caster sugar
• 35 grams of light brown sugar (you can use caster sugar alternatively)
• 2 large eggs
• 400 grams of self raising flour
• 70 grams of chopped almonds (optional, add all walnuts alternatively)
• 30 grams of chopped walnuts
• 150 grams baking chocolate chips

Method for the moist homemade date cake

1. Heat the oven to 180C, fan assisted and line 30cm cake tin
2. In a bowl, add the pitted dates and bicarbonate of soda. Then pour over the boiling water, give it a mix through and leave to sit.

3. Next add the butter, sugar, eggs, self raising flour, almonds, walnuts and then the dates with the boiling water into the food processor. The food processor will be very full, so blitz on the lowest setting, once it seems things are mixing well, increase the speed and allow it to blitz together for 2 minutes or so.

(If you do not have a food processor, cream the butter and sugar. Then add the eggs and whisk in. Next add the flour nuts and whisk again. Finally add the dates and whisk again).

4. Then you will need to scrape the mixture into the cake tin spread the mixture evenly as possible.

5. Then spread the chocolate chips on top of the batter and bake for an hour.

6. After an hour check the cake to see if it’s cooked through. I use a skewer to do this, if it comes out clean then the cake is ready. If not turn the heat down to 160C and cook for another 15 minutes, you do not want to risk the cake burning. The cake should be fully cooked after this time.