OK, so I made a cake last night. It's from "Raw Food Made Easy For 1 or 2 People". The base is walnuts and dates processed in a food processor. You are supposed to process until it begins to stick together, then add a tiny bit of water, process a bit more, then lay it out and chill.

This morning, I took it out of the fridge and checked it. While the cake tastes good, it is way too crumbly. I am wondering why that is. Any thoughts? I did a few things differently than the recipe, but I do not know whether any of these could be contributing to the crumbliness.

- I used California dates instead of madjool dates. I figured, based on the different weights of the dates, that 1 madjool date is equivalent to 3 California dates. But now I am wondering, are madjools stickier than California dates? Could that be it?

- In the food processor, I am not sure if the mixture ever began to "stick together". It did a little bit, but not really. I thought it would firm up in the fridge.

- I spread the cake out waay too thin. It's supposed to go into a 5" pan, while I used a 9". This means that my cake was 30% the thickness of what it was supposed to be. It was really the same thickness as pizza crust. Could this be the reason?

Thanks.

hey james.

crumbly could mean that you spread it too thin, but my guess is that the crust didn't have enough dates to stick the whole thing together well.

california dates are notoriously dry and medjool dates are moist and tacky. if you use drier dates in recipes its sometimes helpful to soak them in some room temperature water for a while to soften them. the water will also lend itself towards moistening the whole crust once you add the nuts to the dates in your food processor.

I find that first grinding nuts and then adding in dates a few at a time is a good way to gage if your crust dough is sticky enough to roll out and fill.


i breathe in
i breathe out
peace
love
courage
Bikini

For a second try, I soaked the California dates in water for 5 minutes. When processing, I waited to see that the food mixture started becoming a bit clumpy. Then, added 2 teaspoons of water, 5 more seconds, and it all turned into one big sticky clump. So this time it worked! Thanks for the good advice.