Amish Date Pudding with Brown Sugar Sauce

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There are some Amish recipes that make perfect sense: chicken corn soup, shoofly pie, cinnamon rolls, and so on. All of these recipes are sourced with ingredients right there on the homestead and have been perfected by Amish cooks for generations.

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But there are other "Amish recipes" that have made their way into Amish culinary culture that really don’t make any sense. This is one of them: date pudding? But regardless of whether they make sense or not, dates are "having a moment", feted by outlets like the New York Times as receiving new scrutiny from nutritionists and food fad followers. Dates can now be found in almost every aisle of the supermarket, from chocolate-covered dates, to date sugar, and even date drinks. Who would have thought the Amish would have something so special with dates?

Date pudding is very popular as a dessert in many Amish communities, especially as the warm days of summer begin to unfold.  Date pudding is a summer treat in many Amish settlements.  It's an enduring Amish food mystery for me because dates (middle eastern) have no real roots or cultural culinary commonality with the Amish.  But this dish turns up again and again at Amish events and in Amish cookbooks. I've seen it - and sampled it - at many Amish benefit meals or auction buffets.

 I don't care if you like dates or not or don't know whether you like dates, you'll like this pudding!  It is so cool and refreshing, I think the homemade brown sugar sauce just knocks it out of the park.  This isn't the best photo in the world,but I caught some being served at an Amish benefit supper last year and got this photo.   Man,it was so, so good. I wish I could come up with a better "descriptor" than good.....um, it was a chilling, refreshing, date dream full of flavor and texture. There, that's better.

The above photo was some date pudding that I saw at an Amish benefit auction. I really wanted more, but didn't want to make a glutton of myself. My guess is that many Amish bulk food stores probably carry dates, just for this pudding.

This refreshing Amish date pudding is often served as a dessert at weddings, benefit suppers, or after-church potlucks.

Dates are stocked in Amish bulk food stores, which is how they became part of Amish cooking culture. And the reason they are stocked is the same reason raisins and bananas and other fruits you wouldn't expect. These fruits have much longer shelf life and don't need to be refrigerated. Amish bulk food stores sell strawberries, sure, and apples and peaches, but they are much more seasonal fruits that are tougher and more expensive to get out of season. But a shipment of bananas or dates in the middle of winter? No problem! So inventive Amish cooks discovered the versatility of dates and began buying them and using them.

Butter, sugar, and eggs, now these are common ingredients that make this much more in line with a typical Amish dessert! Often ingredients that would seem out of place in Amish kitchens - like dates - find a warm welcome when they can be paired with traditional Amish staples like sugar, butter, and eggs. And this date pudding definitely does that!

This incredible brown sugar sauce is what really makes this dessert! I am sure you could skip the dates and just use this sauce on whatever.

This is the whole confection before it heads into the oven.

Bake it for about 40-45 minutes until you have this solid "date brick" and then remove from the oven, chunk it up and cover with Cool Whip or homemade whipping cream. This is an amazing dessert.

🍮 More Amish Pudding Recipes

Freeman Bontrager's Chocolate Pudding

Lemon Pudding

Amish Raisin Pudding

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