work in progress

I have an experiment baking in the oven right now, and I am having a hard time cooling my heels, waiting for it to be done. It's a reduced-carb date nut bread, and it really was a bit of a bother to put together -- but when I took a taste of the batter before I popped it into the oven, it tasted like dates. mmmmmm

Dates are problematic for low-carbers because they are approximately 75% sugar by weight. Seriously. 40 grams of dates has 30 grams of carbohydrates (sugars). [Note that's net the 1 gram of fiber also found in the same 40 grams of dates.] How many dates do you think you need to get up to 40 grams? Here's a hint: that's about a tenth of a pound, give or take, and it works out to 2 large or 3 smaller dates.

The typical date nut bread recipe calls for an entire cup of chopped dates! I think that must be at least 6 or 8 ounces. When the dates are chopped, they're very sticky and they clump together like mad. I'm sure no one packs his "one cup chopped dates" loosely. (It's not like the recipe says "one cup dates, chopped," which is an entirely different thing.) So I'll go with 8 ounces as an estimate, which would give the typical date nut bread recipe 150 grams of carbs from the dates alone. (whoa)

I needed a way to get the flavor of dates into the bread without all the carbs, so I used an almond-flour zucchini bread recipe as my launch pad. I shredded the zucchini, and then chopped a mere 4 ounces of dates and threw them in the same bowl. Then I added some unsalted butter, and some sugar free vanilla syrup (actually, Torani's Vanilla Bean, this time.) Nuked all that for a good 3-4 minutes until the zucchini softened, then stirred it like mad and let it cool for a bit. Then pureed it in the food processor, adding the eggs. Then did the whole measure/stir/sift the dry ingredients into the wet, chopped the walnuts and tossed them in, and poured it into the pan.

I'm thinking it will take anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour to bake, because low-carb baked goods tend to bake more quickly than traditional flour/sugar quick breads would. Twenty-five minutes to go -- I guess I should go clean up the kitchen, huh?

Later: It's delicious! The date flavor is more subtle than in a traditional date bread, though. As a base recipe, this is fine, but I think in my write-up I may suggest adding more dates for those who really want to splurge. I'm very pleased with the texture, too!