Chocolate Peanut Butter Stuffed Dates
Easy no-bake dessert · 6 ingredients
A no-bake dessert that tastes like a candy bar: soft dates stuffed with peanut butter, crushed roasted peanuts and cashews, coated in melted chocolate and frozen until the shell snaps. Six ingredients, no oven, and they keep in the fridge for a week. Made on the channel by Maya.
Ingredients
- 12 soft dates (Medjool are best)
- 2 tbsp peanut butter
- ½ cup (85 g) chocolate, melted — dark or milk, your favourite
- 1 tsp crushed roasted peanuts
- 1 tsp crushed cashews
- A pinch of salt
Nutrition is an estimate per serving.
Method
- Pit the dates: slit each date lengthwise with a small knife and pull out the pit, keeping the date in one piece.
- Make the filling: stir the peanut butter, crushed peanuts, cashews and a pinch of salt together in a small bowl.
- Stuff: spoon a little of the peanut butter mixture into each date and press it closed.
- Melt the chocolate in the microwave in short 20-second bursts, stirring between each, until smooth and glossy.
- Coat: dip each stuffed date in the melted chocolate so it is completely covered, then lift out with a fork and let the excess drip off.
- Set: place on a parchment-lined tray and freeze for about 30 minutes, until the chocolate is completely firm.
- Serve straight from the fridge — the chocolate stays snappy and the centre stays soft.
Watch it made
Notes on this recipe
Medjool for a reason
Medjool dates are larger, softer and more caramel-like than the usual dried varieties, which matters when the date is most of the recipe. Drier dates crack when you slit them and fight the filling. If yours are firm, soak them in warm water for ten minutes and pat them dry — they will open without tearing.
Keep the date in one piece
Slit lengthways and lever the pit out rather than cutting all the way through. A date that is still hinged closes around the filling and holds it; a halved one leaks peanut butter into the chocolate and makes a mess of the coating. The nuts and salt in the filling are not decoration: salt cuts the sweetness of date and chocolate together, which is otherwise relentless.
Twenty-second bursts, stirring between
Chocolate scorches at surprisingly low temperatures, and once it seizes into a stiff grainy paste there is no bringing it back. Short bursts with a stir between each let the residual heat do most of the melting. Stop while a few small lumps remain and stir them out off the heat.
Setting and keeping
The freezer sets the coating in ten to fifteen minutes, which is fast enough that the dates do not freeze solid. Longer and they go hard; let them sit out a few minutes before eating. Keep them in the fridge in a single layer — stacked, the chocolate marks. They hold two weeks cold, which makes them a useful thing to make ahead. Roughly 120 calories each.
