Well if this isn't the easiest cake I ever made in my entire life. And why can't all of life be this simple and this successful.
4 ingredients plus some hot water - but I didn't have one of them so I used 3 ingredients plus some hot water.
Now go figure how you can make a cake with so little stuff and effort. Is that what life is really about but we keep missing the point? Maybe we - and by we I mean I - over-think, over-plan, over-complicate every little thing - so that life becomes a concrete cross crushing us with its weight.
Recently I got the news that I am to have both my knees completely replaced. After I got over the initial revulsion of the image of my legs being chopped into 3 pieces and having a surgeon hammer a titanium joint into the ends of my leg bones I realised something...... it was the happiest news I could have gotten at this very dark period of my life. New knees. A gift from the gods. 20% reduction in my overall rheumatoid pain, the ability to kneel down and garden again, the ability to go up the stairs without crying tears of pain and frustration. All of a sudden the very thing I have been putting off for 5 years seems to be the best thing to be happening. It is probably a part of my need to get my life back on track.
So much has happened this year and culminated 4 weeks ago in my being assaulted by a client at work who had a psychotic break right in front of me and proceeded to throw 5 heavy desk chairs at me. After I locked him into the interview room I had been in with him we evacuated our building and waited 11 minutes for the police to arrive. In that small window of time - 11 minutes - he got out of the room and proceeded to systematically work his way through the office and throw every single desk chair at every single computer. He also threw chairs at 9 plate glass windows, smashing them and damaging 3 of my fleet cars parked outside in the process. Everyone was upset and as the manager of that site it was my job to coordinate everything including the repairs over the next 5 days - 2 of which were the weekend.
I still have a few injuries - some deep bruising and I think my left thumb may be fractured because every time I use it I get a sharp shooting pain there. Now please don't worry it will be x-rayed tomorrow.
So as I have worked my very large ass off to get my office and staff back up and running I learned another bitter lesson in life. The staff don't give a rat's arse about me. Hardly any of them didn't blame me for the incident. They wanted to know why I had interviewed that client in our office instead of somewhere else... where else I have no idea. Most of them didn't even ask me if I was OK. I worked 12 hour days to get new computes, chairs, windows and a security guard. I worked on the days they were allowed to go home and I worked on the weekend. No one has thanked me.
So a week ago when the orthopedic surgeon said 'well, madam, we will have to whip those old joints out and get you new ones", I cringed then smiled. "Madam" indeed! My only condition was that he NOT do them both at the same time. I am not good with bedpans!....something to do with retaining that last shred of dignity women in general are deprived of early in life with their first Pap test.
Ah... the cake has cooled enough to come out of the pan. Smells divine.
In a mixing bowl place 375 grams of dates. Sorry my American friends I am not helping you with conversions - it's time you all joined the rest of the metric world.
1 cup of hot black coffee - made with 2-3 teaspoons of coffee - no sugar. I used 3 teaspoons being the coffee junkie that I am. Can use Decaf if you like.
Pour the hot coffee over the dates and allow to stand for about 2 hours. You can chop the dates if you like - I didn't.....lazy remember?
After 2 hours throw in one heaped cup of Self Raising flour - the one that already has the baking soda and other stuff in it.
Mix it with a fork. Now the mix needs to look like a sticky mess rather than a runny batter or bread dough. If it feels too dry just add a few more drops of water. If too runny add a dash more of flour.
Pour it into a greased and lined loaf tin.
Bake at 170 Celcius for 45 minutes.
so.... here it is again
375g of dates
1 largish cup of very strong hot black unsweetened coffee
Stand 2 hours
throw in a heaped cup of Self Raising Flour and mix.
Bake @ 170C for 45 minutes.
Done. Did you notice there is no sugar? Yet the cake is sweet from the dates. A life lesson. Don't add sugar and you can still enjoy it.
The fourth ingredient - in case you haven't fallen asleep yet - was slivered almonds to go on the top of the cake before baking. But therein lies another life lesson - we don't always need the embellishments.
Of course I slathered some butter on my slice while it was hot - well you gotta have some fun.......
It was simple and it tasted brilliant.
And the journey back from the floom continues!
Summer arrives downunder as you can see from this pic of my walnut tree. So coffee and cake under the tree for me.
