This is my mother's recipe and she bakes this cake to us every Christmas and sometimes in other occasions too but during those cold wintry months around Christmas time this is the most wonderful scent in the house.
The cake preserves really well so this is usually made a couple of weeks before we are planing to eat it and it's best to store the cake in the fridge or in the cellar. As long as you store it in the cool place, wrapped in a plastic, it will last easily a month or even more. The flavor gets better and better when the cake is stored this way and on Christmas it will be full of that flavor that is one of the building blocks of the childhood Christmas.
Many people in Finland make date cakes during the Christmas time and there are just as many recipes as there are bakers. This one is a bit different to many others I have tasted. My mother's cake has darker colour and more intense flavour and no cream, milk or coffee is used. I like this one more than the others since this is the cake which in you can really taste the dates. There is no need to mix any other flavour in it. Cream and coffee will only take a crown away from the dates.
250g (8.819 oz) dried dates
200 grams (7.055 oz) water
175 grams (6.173 oz) sugar
200 grams (7.055 oz) butter
2 eggs
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp vanilla sugar
230 grams (8.113 oz) all purpose flour
1. Add the dates, water, sugar and butter into a pot. Boil them as long as it needs to get dates break.
2. Let the mix cool down and prepare the bundt cake pan in the meanwhile. Butter it well and dust with dark cocoa powder or a mix of all-purpose four and cocoa powder.
3. Whip the eggs into the mixture, one at the time.
4. Mix the dry ingredients together and then add them to the batter. Mix as little as possible.
5. Bake about 55-60 minutes in the center of the oven in 175°C (350°F).