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Date paste in a small glass dish sitting on a kitchen towel.

How to make date paste.

Juliette | Flourishing Kitchen
This easy 5-minute raw date paste makes a beautiful natural sweetener and easily replaces other kinds in your raw dressings, sauces, sweets and desserts.
5 from 12 votes
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Prep Time :5 minutes
Soaking time. :30 minutes
Total Time :35 minutes
Course: Condiment
Cuisine: Mediterranean
Servings :175 ml

Equipment

  • a blender or food processor with an s-blade.
  • a spoon or spatula.
  • jar or container with a lid for storing.

Ingredients
  

  • 1 cup or about 12 small dates / approx. 115 g, (pre-soaked until soft and pitted.)
  • ½ cup or 125ml soak water

Instructions
 

  • Soak fresh dates in water for a minimum of 30 minutes. Once softened remove dates from the water, reserving ½ a cup (125ml) of soak water for blending.
  • Make sure that pitts are removed from the dates before you begin, then add pre soaked dates to a blender together with the reserved soak water.
  • Blend until smooth then using a spoon or spatula scrape out the paste into a container. May be kept fresh in the refrigerator if covered for up to 2 weeks.

Notes

Use pitted dates - remember the dates need to be pitted before blending so as not to ruin your blender. This is easy to do. Just pull each date apart and remove the stone in the middle. 
This is best done before soaking. I’ve done it after soaking and ended up with very sticky fingers.
To soften dates - place them in a small bowl and cover with water. Leave them submerged for a minimum of 30 minutes in hot water. If the dates are quite dry or hard test them after 2-4 hours for softness. How long to leave them depends on how hard they are. If I’m super busy I may leave them in water overnight to blend the following day.
To test them, just squeeze one between your fingers lightly and if it’s squishy it will be ready for blending.
For a thicker paste - use less soak water when blending. I like mine quite thin in consistency since I’m not using it in dry baking recipes to replace dried sugar.