Buttery Pecan Date Spread Recipes

DATE PECAN TEA BREAD

Steps:

• Place dates in a large bowl. Combine boiling water and baking soda; pour over dates. In a small bowl, combine the flour, cloves, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg; set aside. , In another large bowl, beat butter and sugar until crumbly. Beat in egg and vanilla. Add flour mixture alternately with date mixture. Stir in pecans. , Pour into a greased and floured 9x5-in. loaf pan. Bake at 350° for 65-75 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan to wire rack to cool completely. , In a small bowl, combine spread ingredients. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour. Serve with bread.

HOMEMADE PECAN BUTTER

Steps:

• Pour the pecans into a large skillet and toast, stirring often, over medium heat until fragrant (don't let them burn!). This will take about 4 to 8 minutes.
• Pour the toasted pecans into a food processor or high-speed blender and let them cool for several minutes. Then blend the pecans, pausing to scrape down the sides with a spatula often. The mixture will be crumbly at first, but will eventually blend into super-creamy goodness. Be careful not to let the mixture get too hot, which seems to cause oil separation. You might have to stop and let the mixture/machine cool down for a bit just to be safe. The amount of blending time required really depends on your machine-my old food processor took ten to fifteen minutes to turn the pecans into pecan butter, but my fancy Blendtec and Vitamix blenders can turn it into butter in a minute or two.
• Add a pinch of sea salt and a dash of cinnamon (if using). Blend again, taste, and add more salt or cinnamon if needed.
• Pour into a small jar, seal it with a lid, and store it in the refrigerator for good measure. This pecan butter will keep well, refrigerated, for up to 1 month or so-obviously, don't eat it if you see or smell any signs that it has gone bad.

PECAN DATE BUTTER

Steps:

• Place pecans in a dry saute pan and over medium heat toast until browned. Toss often (every ten seconds or so) so they don't burn. As soon as they are toasted, pour out of the hot pan onto a plate or small sheet tray to cool. Let cool completely to room temperature.
• Check to make that all of the dates are in fact pitted. I found out the hard way that sometimes a few unpitted dates get mixed in.
• Place the dates in the bowl of a food processor along with the oil and puree until smooth. With my high-speed food processor, it took about a minute or two to get the dates to a gummy consistency.
• Remove the pureed date mixture to a small bowl.
• In the same food processor bowl, add the now cooled pecans. Process in 15 second blasts, removing the cover for a second to release heat. I found out through trial and error that if you just let it go, the heat from friction and the food processor motor will heat the nuts and separate the oil from the nut solids. Once that happens, there is nothing you can do to correct it and you must start over.
• Keep pulsing for 15 seconds and eventually the nuts will go from pieces to ground, to a fine ground and finally to a smooth creamy consistency. To get mine to a smooth creamy consistency took about 2-3 minutes, stopping every 15 seconds to make sure the mixture did not heat up too much.
• Once the nuts are creamy, add the pureed dates back in along with the salt and pulse just to combine.
• Taste and add more salt as needed.

BUTTERY PECAN DATE SPREAD

Steps:

• in small mixer bowl combine the cream cheese, beat at med speed, scraping bowl often until well mixed.
• by hand stir in remaining ingredients.
• serve with crackers or nut bread.
• store refrigerated.