Date Nut Bread

Packed with sweet dates and nutty pecans, this date nut bread is an old-fashioned quick bread that is perfect for sharing with friends and family during the holiday season.

If you’ve been around for a while, you know I love a retro family recipe. 

My family’s fruitcake cookies are a big favorite (don’t let the word “fruitcake” scare you off), and I can pretty much devour an entire batch of Maureen’s rice krispie cookies in one sitting.

Today I am sharing another old family favorite: date nut bread.

As with most of my family recipes, this one has a bit of a back story. Apparently this recipe was given to my great-grandmother by a woman who was a professional cook. 

Now, here’s the thing: she told my great-grandmother that she would only give her the recipe if she promised to keep it a secret.

…whoops.

I’ll admit, I’m taking a risk of my great-grandmother coming back to haunt me by sharing this one with the internet. But I really think date nut bread is a great recipe, and one that you should have in your repertoire, especially at the holidays. 

It’s worth the risk, I’ll promise you that.

Delicious date nut bread

This date nut bread is an unassuming-looking quick bread. But take a bite and you’ll see that there’s so much more going on than meets the eye.

This bread is full of sweet chopped dates paired with nutty pecans – a combo that is really hard to beat. It’s not overly sweet, so it’s a great bread for toasting up and topping with butter for breakfast or snacking on with an afternoon chai latte. 

Much like my fruitcake cookies, this is one of those breads that is good one on day one, better one on day two, and just downright awesome on day three. Which means that it is the perfect bread to either make ahead or give away to friends and loved ones.

The method for making this bread is a little unusual and what puts this recipe squarely into the “retro” category for me. But none of the steps are hard and you’ll be rewarded with a delicious loaf of date nut bread.

How to make this date nut bread

If you’ve made some of my other quick bread recipes, such as cranberry nut bread or sourdough banana bread, you’ll notice that this date nut bread recipe is a little different. But they, that’s an old-fashioned recipe for ya!

Let’s talk about it, shall we?

Ingredients you’ll need

To make this quick bread, you will need:

• 1 cup pitted and chopped dates
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ¾ cup boiling water
• ¾ cup lightly packed light brown sugar
• 1 large egg (divided into yolk and white)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
• ¾ cup chopped pecans
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• Coarse sugar for sprinkling, optional

When you’re buying the dates for this recipe, you have a couple of options.

If you check with the other dried fruits, you can typically find bags of chopped dates. I’m lazy, so that’s usually what I like to grab.

In the produce section, you can find find containers of whole, pitted dates that you can chop yourself. Grab these if you want to snack on the leftover dates or use them to make chocolate-covered stuffed dates, bacon-wrapped dates, or pork loin with dried fruit compote.

My family almost always prefers pecans in recipes that call for chopped nuts, and I think pecans are the perfect pairing with the dates in this bread. But if you prefer walnuts, feel free to sub those in!

If you’ve got a keen eye, you might have noticed that the only fat listed in this recipe is from the egg yolk. That’s not a mistake! I promise the bread is going to come out great with the listed ingredients.

Making this quick bread

The first step in this recipe is to combine the dates, baking soda, and boiling water in a bowl or measuring cup and set this aside to cool. Mixing these 3 ingredients together helps to soften the dates and sweeten them up by neutralizing the tannins.

Using an electric mixer, beat the brown sugar with the egg yolk. Add in the cooled date mixture (with the liquid) and the vanilla and stir to combine.

Add the salt, flour, and pecans and stir until just combined. Set the bowl aside.

Now use the mixer to whip the egg white to stiff peaks. Gently fold this into the batter, then sprinkle the baking powder on top and fold it in. (See? Weird! But it works!)

Gently pour the batter into a greased and lined 8×4-inch loaf pan. Smooth the top with a spatula and sprinkle the top with coarse sugar if you’d like a crunchy and sweet top.

Bake the date nut bread at 350°F for 50 minutes. A toothpick or tester inserted into the center should come out clean.

Let the bread cool in the pan before turning it out onto a wire rack.

Storage and freezing

Store the loaf for several days, well wrapped, at room temperature.

As I mentioned before, this date nut bread is good on day one, but it’s better the next day. It really just gets better with time.

Part of this is due to the lack of fat in the batter, so the moisture of the dates spreads into the bread as it sits. 

You can also freeze the bread for up to 3 months. Wrap the loaf in a layer of plastic wrap followed by heavy-duty aluminum foil.

Let the bread sit at room temperature for a couple of hours to thaw before slicing and enjoying.