A Quick Bread Favored by Pat Nixon and Lauren Bacall
Recipe Box Roulette Recipe #6 - Edith's Oatmeal Date Nut Bread
This article is part of our Recipe Box Roulette series, a “card game” designed to honor the legacy of the original curators of and revive recipes from forgotten or neglected recipe boxes.
Date nut bread recipes saw their heyday in the mid-Century with the likes of Pat Nixon and Lauren Bacall enjoying this dense sweet bread with cream cheese.
What is Date Nut Bread
Date nut bread recipes began to appear in the 1920’s and became so popular in the 1930’s that it was used to make tea sandwiches, says Jean Anderson in her book, The American Century Cookbook. Based on the number of recipes for date nut bread in my grandma’s recipe boxes as well as her Ladies Sewing Circle community cookbook, this recipe was indeed very popular through the mid-Century.
Even Pat Nixon, the First Lady of the United States from 1969 – 1974, had her version of Date Nut Bread that was featured in a 1961 column “Hints From Heloise.”
Each recipe varies slightly. Some use coffee or boiling water to soften the dates. Others dispense with that entirely. Some cream a fat and sugar together while others mix melted butter into the wet ingredients. They all, of course, have dates and nuts. Essentially, date nut bread is a quick bread with chopped dates and nuts mixed into a batter baked in a bread loaf pan and, as most of the recipes suggest, served with cream cheese or butter.
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