Chocolate Covered Stuffed Dates

Christmas food shopping is crazy right? And it’s in full swing here. The supermarkets and markets are now full of Christmas fare, there are so many choices on offer and it’s all very tempting. I always want to buy everything, you know, all the stuff you’re supposed to buy at Christmas, like the bags of nuts, and the lovely boxes of clementines with the leaves on, all the cheese, the cakes and I always buy dates. I always buy dates and then I’m left thinking what to do with them, I mean there are only so many power balls you can eat and I sort of think that they deserve more than that, and even though they are great in savoury dishes I like them as a sweet treat. So say hello to chocolate covered, peanut butter stuffed dates.

So when I came across this recipe from Half Baked Harvest I knew that this would be perfect for my dates that may otherwise languish in my cupboard or be turned into power balls as a last resort. I have adapted the recipe a little bit, but not much. Tieghan pretty much nailed that recipe so there was no need to mess around with it too much as far as I’m concerned 😉 I don’t often share recipes in a blog post from other blogs but sometimes I make an exception if I think you’ll appreciate the recipe and may have not seen it already. As you can imagine I read a lot of blogs, but there are just a few that I read on a regular basis,  Tieghan’s blog is one of those and I recommend you check it out if you haven’t seen it already.

These dark chocolate covered dates are stuffed with peanut butter and have a good sprinkling of pistachio crumble. They are best cold so keep them in the fridge in an airtight container, they should keep for a few days, but to be honest they didn’t last very long here! They are sweet and gooey and have a little saltiness from the peanut butter, and they have that little extra crunch from the pistachios. I used smaller deglet nour dates as I wanted these to be little nuggets of sweet happiness and deglet nour are a bit chewier than medjool dates and a little less sweet. You could keep to Tieghan’s recipe and use medjool dates if you wish. I also used crunchy peanut butter for extra crunch and topped them with crumbled pistachios but you could swap in any other nut or seed you have handy.

In other news, we are all back to our normal routines this week and I was very excited and slightly nervous to have my very first interview for radio yesterday!! The very lovely Dr. Sue Bailey from the Flavour programme on Cambridge 105 interviewed me about my blog, I’ll share it with you when its aired, that’s if they don’t decide to ditch it when they hear me ramble on and on, oh I think I am happiest with my keyboard and behind the camera 😉

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Chocolate Covered Stuffed Dates

Dark chocolate covered dates stuffed with peanut butter and covered in crumbled pistachios.

Course Treats

Prep Time 1 hour 10 minutes

Total Time 1 hour 10 minutes

Servings 26 Pieces

Author Michelle Alston

Ingredients

• 220 g Deglet Nour dates , cut lengthways and the stone removed
• 100 g crunchy natural peanut butter
• 150 g dark chocolate , 85% cocoa
• 1 tbs coconut oil
• 10 g unsalted pistachios

Instructions

1. Cut the dates lengthways, being carful not to cut them completely in half, remove the stone.
2. Spoon a teaspoon of peanut butter into the dates, place on a parchment paper lined tray and place in the freezer for 30 minutes.
3. Blitz the pistachios in a food processor until they resemble a fine crumble, if you don't have a food processor you can get the same result if you chop them with a knife.
4. Melt the chocolate and coconut oil in a bowl over a pan of simmering water.
5. Take the dates out of the freezer and dip them in the chocolate one by one. I stuck a wooden cocktail stick into the dates and dipped them into the chocolate, making sure the date is completely covered.
6. Place the chocolate covered dates back onto the paper lined tray, sprinkle the pistachio over the chocolate and then place in the fridge for at least 30 minutes to set.

This time last year on The Last Food Blog – Creamy Chicken & Mushroom Tagliatelle