PB Stuffed Dates
My mom always made these dates as an appetizer/snack/dessert food for family holiday parties. She says Thanksgiving only, but I swear I remember them from both Thanksgiving and Christmas! As a kid I would totally stuff myself on these and ruin my appetite for dinner. (Get it? Stuff myself? Ha.)
Happy Thanksgiving!
They are incredibly simple. Ingredients:
- Pitted dates
- Peanut butter
- Powdered sugar
Directions: Slice pitted dates along one edge. Put peanut butter inside with a butter knife. Roll in powdered sugar. Eat. You see? Simple.
Of course the devil’s in the details, so here are all the details. Mind you, these will still taste great even if you don’t worry about the details. But here goes.
Date type: My mom recommended using Medjool dates since they supposedly taste the best. But I used Deglet Noor dates since the Medjool dates at our store cost 3x as much, were 2-3x as big (not bite sized) and weren’t pitted! The Deglet Noors came out just fine.
Peanut butter type: I also used “natural” peanut butter since I thought that would make them seem fancy. However, in the future I think I will use regular peanut butter. (A) Why bother using peanut butter with no added sugar, when you’re about to put the peanut butter in a sweet fruit and roll it in sugar? (B) The natural peanut butter separates and the oil gets on the outside of the dates, making them sticky, which means you need even more sugar to make them not sticky! I stirred the peanut butter really well but it was very oily. I suppose maybe I should have poured off some of the oil from the top, then stirred. But next time I’ll just go with my cheap-o, homogenized peanut butter.
Stuffing method: The dates are pitted like an olive, so there is a cylindrical hole down the middle. Like I said in the directions, I sliced the dates along one side and stuffed them with peanut butter, kind of like a sub sandwich. But I suppose if you were really fancy you could use a frosting bag (or just a plastic bag with the corner cut off) and squeeze the peanut butter in one end. I may try that next time for better looking dates.
Sugar timing: I made these dates the night before, rolling them in sugar until they weren’t sticky. By the next morning, the sugar had sort of coalesced with PB oil and they were sticky again! So I rolled them in sugar again. They still tasted good and weren’t tooooo sweet (at least for me), but one sugar roll would surely have been enough.
I think the reason I had not problem using natural peanut butter is that I used a jar that was already half empty, so it was not as oily. My dates didn’t get oily on the outside like yours, so I only had to roll once in the sugar. You’re right, the Medjool dates were very expensive, and very BIG! Pitting them was very easy, but they were definitely not bite sized. Forget trying to make them look good, they’ll always be ugly!