Date & whisky cake

Another of my passions is food and cooking so I'm sharing here a cake recipe which has become a family favourite:

Date & whisky cake

(Jeremy & Jane Strode in the SMH 8/4/08)

Serve this rich, moist cake with coffee as an afternoon treat or as a simple dessert with a good dollop of double cream

300g fresh dates, pitted and roughly chopped (dried dates work too)

½ cup water

30ml whisky

125g butter

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

½ cup milk

200g self-raising flour, sifted

Pinch salt

2 tbsp Demerara sugar

Preheat oven to 180C.  Grease and line the bottom of a 23cm springform tin with baking paper.  Cook dates in the water until soft and liquid is absorbed.  Stir through whisky.

Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Beat in eggs one at a time.  Add dates and combine.  Add bicarb soda to milk and stir through batter to combine. Fold through flour and salt and pour into tin.  Sprinkle with Demerara sugar and bake for 60 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.  Remove from tin and cool on a wire rack.