My Mother's Date & Nut Bread

Author Notes

My mother, Lila, died 27 years ago just 13 days shy of her 53rd birthday following a valiant five-year battle with breast cancer. I still miss her every day. She was an exceptional home baker and it is undoubtedly from her that I inherited my passion for baking. I think she’d be proud to know that I earned a professional Pastry Cook’s certificate in 2007. I have vivid childhood memories of baking at my mother’s side when I was as young as four or five years old (more than 50 years ago!). When I left home to make my way in the world, I copied down my favorites of her recipes in long hand on loose leaf paper using a medium-point red felt tip pen. I still work from those recipes, the paper long since yellowed and stained. The most comforting of these is her Date & Nut Bread which, in truth, should really be called “cake.” But she baked it in #2 cans to make little loaves and then sliced it into thick, delicious rounds and always called it “bread.” To this day I can see her heading to the cupboard where she kept her stash of cans. The joy of baking with her, the sweet aroma from the oven, the taste of the warm bread slathered with melting cream cheese warmed my heart then. And it warms my heart and soul still. About the photos - that first one is my mother and me in the Catskills, Summer 1955; the next is her in the Summer of 1950 and the third is on her honeymoon in Miami in January 1950. —Maui Bonnie