After making goat cheese stuffed dates with my friend, I remembered a bag of dates in my cupboard that I needed to use up, and went looking for a recipe that sounded good. I landed on this Date Squares with Oat Crust recipe from The Spruce. I knew I didn't have enough dates for it, though, so I decided to cut the recipe in half and also use a package of dried golden figs that were in the cupboard to make up the difference. I baked it in an 8x8 square pan, which is slightly more than half the volume of a 13x9 pan, and reduced the cooking time by about 5 minutes. Other substitutions I made: salted butter and dark brown sugar (because it was what I had). I cooked the filling a bit longer than it asked for because my dates were VERY dried out. My bottle of vanilla ran out with this recipe so I fished out the vanilla bean from inside the bottle and cooked it with the dates and figs, then removed it before putting the filling in the pan.
The amount of crust was just barely enough to hold the bars together, but that was OK. it was nice and crumbly and buttery, and just sweet enough. I was a little worried when I read it was a Southern recipe because they seem to like their sweets *REALLY* sweet but this was perfect. I ended up eating them for breakfast...
Overall, I really liked these for a clean-out-the-cupboard experiment, and would consider making them on purpose in the future!
Update 4/15/19: I made these last week with only dates, and while they were really good, I think I like them a little better with figs mixed in. The contrast between the sweet filling and lightly salted oat crumbles is what really makes these special.
Update 3/14/23: I recently made these with only figs and still think a mix of dates and figs is ideal. I also converted the measurements into grams for ease of getting things together.
RECIPE: Date Squares with Oat Crust
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Crust:
3/4 cup (6 oz, 170 g) unsalted butter
1 cup (190 g) light brown sugar, firmly packed
1 3/4 cups (225 g) all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 cups (140 g) quick-cooking oats, uncooked
Filling:
1 1/2 pounds (680 g) dates, chopped
1/3 cup (70 g) sugar
1 1/2 cups (350 ml) water
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
