Date Honey Nut Cake – a moist, tender cake bursting with flavor. This super easy quick bread cake is lovely served with tea or coffee. It’s also a nice change from standard honey cake – perfect for Rosh Hashanah, Sukkot, or any holiday!
When I received a batch of organic dates from a kibbutz in Israel, I found myself wondering what to do with them. These sweet, luscious dates on the vine were perfect for snacking, but how else could I get creative with them?
Date nut cake was an obvious choice, but I wanted to do something a little different. With Rosh Hashanah coming up, my mind wandered to honey cake. The thought of sweetening date nut cake with honey seemed like just the ticket.
Voila! The Date Honey Nut Cake was born. This tasty loaf cake is a unique take on a traditional Rosh Hashanah honey cake.
Dates are actually a symbolic food for Rosh Hashanah, so it’s a great choice for the holiday. In Hebrew, a date is called a “tamar,” which is related to the word “tam” (meaning “to end”) and the word “sheyitamu” (meaning “to be consumed”).
Dates are eaten in the hopes that our enemies will be consumed. They also happen to be naturally sweet, which is another good reason to eat them for Rosh Hashanah (as we hope for a sweet new year).
And here’s another fun fact– biblical scholars believe that the honey repeatedly mentioned in the Torah likely came from dates (and other fruits), not bees. Yet another good reason to eat dates for Rosh Hashanah!
So, what better way to enjoy dates than in a sweet, delicious honey cake? The dates provide lots of moisture, which makes this a convenient make-ahead dessert—the cake will not dry out if you make it a day or two before the holiday begins.
The walnuts add some nice texture and crunch. It’s naturally dairy free, but can be topped with cream cheese frosting for extra decadence (if you’re not worried about keeping it parve).
I hope this cake ends up on your holiday table. It will definitely be on mine.
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Date Honey Nut Cake
Ingredients
- 6 ounces whole dates (3/4 cup)
- 1 cup cake flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- Pinch nutmeg
- 3/4 cup vegetable oil (I use avocado oil, canola oil can also be used)
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 cup honey
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
- Nonstick cooking spray
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Place dates into a bowl and cover them with very hot water. Let the dates soak while you prepare the cake batter.
- In a large mixing bowl, sift together cake flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, and nutmeg.
- In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together vegetable oil, brown sugar, honey, eggs, and vanilla.
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir till a thick batter forms.
- Drain water from the dates. Pit the dates, then chop the fruit into small chunks.
- Fold the walnuts and date chunks into the batter.
- Generously grease your loaf pan with cooking spray. Pour batter into loaf pan.
- Place loaf pan in preheated oven. Bake cake for 50-60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from oven and set on a wire rack to cool.
NOTES
Nutrition
tried this recipe?
Let us know in the comments!
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Made for the family, very well received. I made two loaves – an 8-inch and a 9-inch, the 9- inch bakes within the hour and had risen like a loaf should, the 8-inch took a bit longer and had a more rounded top. Just thought I would put that out there for anyone debating pan size. Also used parchment paper to make removing from the pan even easier.
Definitely plan to make again for future gatherings or if I just happen to have dates on hand.
Hi. Can I freeze this cake? Thank you.
Hi Iris! This cake should freeze with no problem. Enjoy!
This looks really nice (and easy)..will double it as I need one for tomorrow for my daughter’s class (gf) and one for erev rosh hashana.
Update : I got half a dozen delicious cupcakes from my experiment
Thanks again, Tori.
When making cupcakes with this recipe do you have to change anything? And at what temp and how long do you bake them? I prefer cupcakes because there are only two of us here to eat cake and cupcakes are easier to share. Look forward to making this recipe as it looks like my mother’s datenut cake when I was a child, which was many decades ago. Thank you.
Hi Linda! I would up the temp to 350, at that temperature you can expect them to bake in about 25-30 minutes. It may be a little longer or shorter, it’s not an exact science. When a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, they’re done. Enjoy!
fingers crossed…i only had 3oz. dates…halved recipe and they are in the oven in cupcake form…a gift to one of my doctors for Rosh Hashanah. i love learning about other cultures and traditions and foods that surround them. thank you Tori!
Hi can we make this in an 8 inch cake pan?
Thank you! I just made this GF and it is the first cake I have eaten in two years that is actually edible. It came out perfect.
Fabulous! Did you use a simple GF flour substitute? I am sure other readers would love to hear your modifications.
How did you make this gluten free? Almond flour?
I am in Israel and used Keragil flour mix – otherwise I did everything else the same (although I did lessen the oil, sugar and honey) – it’s all gone!
Hi, I have been gf for years. I make my old cakes. I use my own flour mix or one that is called כרגיל here in Israel. People never believe that the cakes are gf. You just have to use the right flour.
hi shana tova i am from israel i have date spread can i use the same amount of date spread instead of whole dates? thanks and awaiting you answer.
Hi Ozzie, Tori’s assistant Ashley here. I’m afraid that the date spread would give a very different result than using whole dates.
Thanks for the reply. will make with regular dates.
Can I substitute using coconut flour and or almond flour to cut on the carbs?
Hi Arianna, Tori’s assistant Ashley here. We haven’t experimented with those flours in this recipe, so unfortunately I can’t guarantee great results. If you decide to give it a try please let us know how it turned out!
Hello, What may I substitute for the nuts?
Totally love this recipe. Thank you so much Tori. I bake this cake quite often, No changes requires. Moist , delicious and has an awesome dark brown crust… My friend too is addicted to this…
OMG! this cake is delicious. If you like Charoset, you will like this cake. I had some pitted dates I needed to use and so I tripped this recipe and baked it in a bundt pan. I made a minor adjustment, and that is that I dusted the chopped dates with flour so they wouldn’t stick together and also so they would not drop to the bottom of the pan while baking which is what happens to chocolate chops when you add them to batter. This is common practice when adding chocolate chips to a cake batter (use a few tablespoons, enough to separate the chopped dates.) As with banana bread, I always sprinkle white sugar on the top of the batter once it’s in the cake pan. It caramelizes and crackles. The sweet crunchy texture makes the top of the cake even better!
Debbie, I see that you tripled the recipe and then baked it in a bundt pan. I was thinking of doing the same thing and wondered at what temp and approx how long you cooked it? Thanks for any insight!
Looks yum, I want to try it today. Did you use vanilla essence or extract?
Hi Carla, Tori’s assistant Ashley here. Vanilla extract was used in this recipe.
Thanks for this delicious recipe I make it often. I add a half tin of crushed pineapple and cardamom instead of nutmeg. Yum.
I want to try this sounds yummy. Instead of honey , could I use molasses ,, if so how much , can hardly wait to taste ,. And I would like to use my conviction oven temp ?? And how long to bake ?? Here goes wish me luck
Hi I tried this recipe and its a delicious cake .. instead of honey I used date molasses and instead of nutmeg I added ground cardamom and grated orange rind .. my husband is Iraqi and he loves date sweets and this recipe is a keeper ! Thank you .. best regards 🙂
Last minute tea time trial. It small s amazing as its cooking, can’t wait to serve it warm with vanilla ice cream x
This cake is delicious, thank you. I added cardamon instead of nutmeg – since I am from Iraq and we use dates (we call it tamar as well) and cardamon a lot. LOVE the recipe
Can i use dry dates in this recipe..
Hi, Tori’s assistant Ashley here! We use dried dates in this recipe, we just rehydrate them with hot water before adding to the mixture.
I made this for Rosh Hashanah this year. Having never liked honey cake and never having baked one before; I searched for something a bit different on the internet that included nuts. It was great! Everyone in the family loved it too. I think this is going to be a regular feature of our New Year now and I may be tempted to make it at other times too. Thank you for posting it.
Hello. I really liked this recipe and i want to try it but i want to serve this with a glaze. I couldn’t find date syrup so i can’t make date syrup glaze. What flavor do you suggest?
Hi Emrah, the easiest glaze is to simply mix sifted powdered sugar with a little bit of water (start with 1 cup powdered sugar, 1-2 tbsp water) and mix together to form a drip-glaze. Add water starting with 1 tbsp, then add more, a tsp at a time, until the icing is thick, pourable and opaque/solid white in color. Drip the glaze over the cake as you see in this post: https://toriavey.com/toris-kitchen/2014/03/lemon-poppy-seed-cake/
I used splash of rose water and soaked dates sin chai tea .