Simple Date Nut Bread

Here is a quick and easy sweet bread to make.  It comes from the WWII edition of The Lilly Wallace New American Cook Book,  published in 1944.   It is recipe 929 on page 214.   This bread is as easy to make as a box cake because of its simple ingredients.  Cake mixes was not manufactured until after the war so many of the recipes I find in this cook book for baked goods are easy and inexpensive.   In the original recipe there is no fat in the ingredients.  I added 1/4 cup of room temperature butter.  While I was measuring out the ingredients mixing this recipe I miss read the amount of sugar then realized after the sugar had been added that I put way too much in.  So I had to quadruple the recipe to make up for it.  I just don’t like to waste.  I divided it up in 3 pans instead of 4 which makes a higher loaf.  The frosting was just canned vanilla frosting that I spread on top while the bread was still warm.  If you used the regular frosting that is not whipped, it will melt a little and then harden as it cools.  The firm frosting makes the bread easy to cut and eat.

Date and Nut Bread

• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup sugar
• *(1/4 cup room temperature butter)
• 1/2 cup dates
• 1/2 cup nut meats
• 2 cups flour
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup of milk

Beat (*butter) egg and  sugar.  Add nut meats broken and dates cut into pieces.  Sift dry ingredients together and add alternately with milk to first mixture.  Turn into greased ** pan. Bate at 350 degrees F. for 45 minutes.  Either all dates or all nuts may be used.

* Not in the orginal recipe because of war time rationing.

** Standard loaf pan