Thanks Michele! These bars were just delicious. The frosting is a big part of their appeal for me. I added Cinnamon, Cardamom, Nutmeg and Cloves to the batter to make them Orange Spice Date Bars.
Excellent flavor and fairly easy to prepare. I have never made or eaten date bars before so I can't say how the date flavor comes through but I thought they were very tasty as did my whole family. I ommited the orange zest in both the bars and frosting as I just don't care for zest. I increased the amount of OJ in the batter by a couple of tablespoons instead. The batter is very much the consistancy of a thick pancake batter. The recipe didn't state when to add the pecans so I mixed them in last. I put it in a glass pan instead of the jelly roll pan because I think it would have spilled over. The recipe for the frosting makes way too much. Half to 2/3 of the recipe would have been enough. I also added two tablespoons of milk to make it creamy before adding the OJ. These were very good and I will definately make them again.
very nice cake bars but added anise seeds to it which made it very tasty. so thats why i am giving it fours stars and also had to cut the sugar back to a little more than half.
This is to die for good. The cake part is yum by itself but the frosting takes it from good to amazing. I followed the recipe exactly.
Great recipe! I made it without any sugar by substituting apple juice for the water. I am also gluten free so I used almond meal in place of the flour. It was delicious!
7.28.20 Unfortunately, by the time I realized that the recipe doesn’t tell you where and when to add the pecans, the bars already were in the oven, so I just added some (not all) into the icing. I knew 3 cups of confectioners sugar would be too much for our taste, so I scaled that back to 1 cup which covered the bars just fine. I did make one substitution. I found that I had two bags of dried plums on hand (why, I don’t have a clue?), so I sub’d them for the dates. The cake bars were super moist and flavorful, and I can see that the chopped pecans would have made them even better. I also can see adding some additional spices to the bars to elevate the flavor even more. Looks like this recipe has been around since 2005, so I’m glad to finally give it a photo. They’re pretty darn good.
