Its hard to get a date in New York City

Granny Bessie's date biscuits

I was in L.A. over the weekend and we went to the farmers market — I was like a kid in a candy store prancing around exclaiming at the bounty of it all.  All that produce.  And it was winter!  It made me want to relocate.  The two things that made me most excited were the guavas (which I should have bought to make guava mousse) and the dates, which I did buy.  Two lovely bags of organic mejdool dates, and extremely juicy and flavorful they are.

I brought them back to Brooklyn and decided to use half to make my Granny Bessie’s date biscuits.  These taste of my childhood… there was always a tupperware full of them in my Gran’s fridge (my mom made them too in case that wasn’t enough).  We’d take a few, run off and play, eat, return to kitchen, repeat.. repeat… repeat.  Easy to make, delicious and they store well in the fridge (I’d say they store indefinitely but I never keep them that long)

Coconut date biscuits (or cookies in American)

• 1 cup dates, chopped
• ½ cup sugar
• ¼ lb butter
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 1 egg, beaten
• 2 tsp cocoa
• 1 pkt marie biscuits, broken into small pieces ranging from crumbs to about 1/4″ big**
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• Dessicated coconut

**Note: Marie biscuits are a South African (and British/Australian) cookie not available in the US.  You can substitute a plain tea biscuit (I used animal biscuits…).  One packet is 200g, or 7oz, but its not critical that you use the exact amount or type of cookie

Melt butter in a med saucepan.
Add the dates, egg, vanilla, sugar, lemon juice and coco powder and blend.
Remove from heat.
Mix in marie biscuits.
Cool.
Roll into small balls (about the size of a cherry tomato).
Add one by one to bowl or storage conatiner/ tupperware with coconut and shake to coat biscuits
Keep refrigerated.