When my sister and I were little (er), my mum would often bake these at the same time as making chocolate brownies. Obviously, we only had eyes for the brownies, repulsed at the very thought of ruining a pudding by adding nuts. Reader, we were wrong. As an adult, I can now see that these are in fact, bloody great. Easy to make, and very easy to eat.
What's the A to V?
Despite the hordes of self-styled wellness bloggers liberally chucking kilos of dates into anything they cook under the pretence of 'sugar free', don't be fooled. Although an unrefined form of sugar, dates are still sugar nonetheless, although they do contain potassium and vitamin B6 (and, for the record, there's absolutely nothing wrong with sugar unless eaten to excess - like absolutely everything else). As for the nuts, these are a fabulous source of numerous minerals, including magnesium and manganese.
Ingredients:
110g butter at room temperature
90g sugar
55g plain flour
2 eggs
55g walnuts and/or pecans, roughly chopped
200g dates (chopped)
3 tbsp of almond butter
175g of dark or plain chocolate
Pinch of salt
Method
Grease a baking tray (roughly 12 by 8 inches) and preheat the oven to 175 degrees.
For the chews, start by creaming together your butter and sugar in a large bowl. Add in your flour and crack your eggs straight into the bowl. Stir until just combined, then add the almond butter, chopped dates and nuts and mix. Add the salt last and stir just a couple of times.
Meanwhile melt your chocolate in a bowl over boiling water and stir until smooth.
Spread your chew mix evenly across the baking tray (don't worry if it looks a bit sparse, it'll expand) and finish by drizzling the melted chocolate on top.
Bake for approximately 25 minutes, or until golden brown. Once cool cut into squares.