I made that!

Today I decided to clean out my fridge. Deep in it’s recesses I found a bunch of Medjool dates leftover from my little muffin experiment a few weeks ago. I poked around on the web trying to find a good recipe to use them up and kept coming across “crispy date bars”. Apparently it’s a classic. I figured that nothing with THAT many versions could be too bad and settled on an Epicurious one that garnered nice reviews.

I started out by boiling up my chopped dates in water, and while they were cooling, went about making the crust. Lots of oats is always a good sign in my book.

I smashed the butter in to form the crust, which was basically the same type of crust used for a fruit crisp.

I pressed the crust mix into the pan, then poured on my cooked dates, and then topped it with the rest of the crust.

It’s like a double crusted crisp! I’m already excited for John, who I’ve caught on more than one occasion eating all of his crisp and leaving the fruit. I popped it into the oven to bake.

I baked it a bit longer than the directions called for, because I was determined to get it nice and caramelized and crispy. And I think it worked. We spent the next hour avoiding the kitchen to keep from ripping into them before they had cooled enough to be cut into cute little squares. I assure you, had I not a blog post in mind, we would have been spooning it straight out of the pan and into our mouths.

We held out as long as felt humanly possible. And then we devoured. And it was so good. I officially declare today International “Crispy Date Bar” Day. Feel free to swing by and grab one in celebration. And to keep John from eating them all while I’m at work.

Here’s a link to the Epicurious recipe:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Classic-Date-Bars-109179