Dattelkonfekkt

I *think* I spelled that right.

This week, we’re going German, for Passover. I’m not sure how to say dattelkonfekkt, but it apparently translates (not terribly surprisingly) into “date confection”. I made a half-hearted attempt to learn a bit of German last fall, before meeting some German customers, but recently I’ve been pulled into more and more conversations with Chinese customers, so I’m questioning which language is more likely to be useful. Probably stick with German, since Duolingo doesn’t support Mandarin, yet.

Aside from trying to improve my language skills, this recipe gave me another chance to use my new(ish) Breville Sous Chef food processor.  Every time I use it, I discover something new. This time, I realized that it has a pouring spout. Simple change, rather useful, yet I’ve never encountered it on another food processor that I’ve owned.

It’s not just the little things that I like about this kitchen gadget, though. It actually works properly, too. I don’t end up with some almond dust and some barely chopped. They’re all nice and even.

Everything you need for this recipe is in this picture. Egg whites, whipped into a meringue, then sugar is beaten in. Almonds are ground, and set aside. Then dates are finely chopped in the food processor, then the almonds added back in. Vanilla & the almond/date mixture are added to the meringue. Then the whole thing is put into a pastry bag and piped onto your parchment lined cookie sheets.

As you can see, I ran out of parchment. 😦 On the plus side, I have Silpats, and I figured that if you could bake these on top of “back oblaten wafers” (optional, and I didn’t bother looking for), you could probably get away with baking them on a Silpat.

On a side note, I kept reading “Back Oblaten” as “Black Oblaten,” which made me think of a character from The Elder Scrolls, for some reason. Oblaten == Obsidian? or Oblaten == Oblivion? That reminds me, I should finish the main quest in Skyrim at some point.

Uh… where was I, aside from Tamriel?

Oh, right. Pipe the cookies onto the sheet, forget to take a picture, then bake for 10-15 minutes.

The recipe said they should ‘give’ hardly at all when pressed lightly, and mine kind of deflated when poked gently, so I put them back in the oven. I think mine all took about 15 minutes. The ones that baked on the Silpat came out slightly darker, oddly enough.

 

I honestly wasn’t expecting much, when I read this recipe. I thought I might enjoy the almond/meringue part, and tolerate the dates, which I hated, growing up, but I didn’t think anyone else would like them. We went to watch Roller Derby with some friends on Saturday night, then came back to our place for a fire in our back yard. This time, no snow! I offered these cookies to our friends, and to my surprise, they were a big hit. I really like them, too, which means they can’t stay at home. 😉