Chinese Chews

Ingredients

• 0.8 cup all purpose flour 
• 1 cup sugar 
• 1 teaspoon double-acting baking powder 
• 0.3 teaspoon salt 
• 1 cup dates chopped
• 1 cup walnuts chopped
• 3  eggs 
• 36 servings confectioners sugar for topping

Equipment

• frying pan
• oven
• whisk
• mixing bowl
• sieve
• blender
• hand mixer
• toothpicks
• sifter

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 300° F. Grease and flour an 8 x 12-inch pan – if you use a smaller pan, the baking time will be longer. Note: If you grease the pan, but don’t flour it, the squares will stick to the pan and be difficult to remove after baking.
2. Combine flour, sugar (not confectioners sugar), baking powder and salt. Sift with a sifter or fine mesh sieve into a medium sized mixing bowl. If you don’t have a sifter, whisk dry ingredients together well to combine.
3. Stir the dates, nuts and well-beaten eggs (I beat the eggs separately with a hand mixer for about 1 minute until fluffy before adding them), into the dry ingredients.
4. It is not necessary to beat the eggs with a mixer, you can beat them by hand with a fork. Make sure ingredients are well combined – the batter will be sticky.
5. Spread the batter out as thinly as possible into the prepared pan.
6. Bake for 30 minutes, or until top is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center of the pan comes out clean.
7. Let cool completely, and cut into 1 to 1 1/2-inch squares. Note: Many recipes call for cutting the squares while still warm. In my experience, they are much easier to cut after they’ve cooled.
8. Sprinkle with powdered sugar, using sifter or sieve, as desired.