Baking date and walnut cake despite problems

Q: What’s worse than finding a maggot in a bag of nuts?

A: Finding a maggot in your last bag of nuts just when you need to bake a date and walnut cake.

Jacqueline didn’t rest on her laurels and worked hard to live up to the idea of a “gâteau de jour” and give  salon de thé customers new cakes for try.

Her first date and walnut cake nearly didn’t appear after an unwelcome surprise in the bag of “Holy Nuts” walnuts we’d just bought from the local Auchan hypermarket.

At first glance it looked as if hair had been roasted into the nuts. On closer inspection it was the threads of a cocoon, thanks to a little white stowaway.

We jumped in the car to return the nuts for a refund and buy a replacement, which robbed us of vital hours in the middle of the day.

Our “grandes surfaces” hypermarkets are a half hour drive away, and the wheels at Auchun’s customer service desk – the “accueil” –  don’t turn particularly fast. We also didn’t want to risk buying any more nuts there from what was almost certainly the same batch. This meant a drive to the other side of the vast Béziers commercial zone to Géant Casino.

It was nearly five in the afternoon before Jacqueline was ready to bake again. She took out her frustration pounding Géant’s larva-free replacement nuts to the appropriate size.

Nothing but nuts for the date and walnut cake

Finally the date and walnut cake was ready for the oven.

Date and walnut cake batter in new silicon mould