From the archives, first posted April 21, 2009.  This is one of our most popular posts and one of my favorite appetizers.  Easy and always a crowd pleaser, it’s a great one to have in your back pocket as we approach the holiday season.

We first had bacon-wrapped dates at a tapas place we like in Menlo Park, Iberia.  The service can be spotty, but the food is delicious, and the sangria is deadly.  They stuff their bacon-wrapped dates with Spanish-style chorizo.  It makes a great combination of spicy, sweet, and salty.  Here, we subbed the chorizo for Campo de Montalban cheese (similar to manchego) and an almond.  I tossed the almonds with olive oil, salt, cayenne pepper, and smoked paprika to add that spicy note, and I like the addition of the creaminess of the cheese.  It’s a great fusion of flavors, and a wonderful appetizer.

You might also like:

• Cheese Date Biscuits
• Cheese Straws

Bacon-Wrapped Stuffed Dates

We’ve tried these with Medjool dates, but they are a bit too sweet and moist. We like them better with more readily available (and cheaper) California dates.

20 pitted dates
20 blanched almonds
10 pieces of bacon
1/4 c cheese, such as manchego, Campo de Montalban, or goat cheese, in small chunks
cayenne pepper
smoked paprika
olive oil
salt

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Optional: Toss almonds with a bit of olive oil, salt, cayenne pepper, and paprika. Don’t shirk on the spices; you want the flavor to come through in the final product. Toast for a few minutes, until barely beginning to brown. Let cool.

Stuff the dates with one almond and a few small chunks of the cheese. (You can probably just use the holes in each end of the date instead of cutting slits in them.)  Wrap each date in a half slice of bacon, and secure the ends with toothpicks.

Place the dates on a broiler pan.  Bake at 350 for about 5 minutes, turn, and bake for another 5 minutes or so, until the bacon is crispy.  Serve warm.

Well, looks like the updates didn’t go quite as smoothly as we had hoped.  If you’re reading this through an RSS reader, you may have noticed the pictures weren’t showing up for a couple days, and if you tried to access anything on Friday during the day, you may have noticed that almost all the links weren’t working.  Both of these were a result of our adding some code to try to stop hotlinking — I’ve been seeing some pictures showing up on other sites via hotlinking without attribution lately, and in trying to nip that in the bud we broke some other things.  Anyway…. we think (hope!) that everything is fixed now.  If you are still having issues, please let us know either via comment here or email to admin@meltingonline.com.

And, to make it up to you, let me share the apricot-cherry crumble I threw together the other night.  This is another to file under “tasty-but-won’t-win-any-beauty-contests,” but it’s deliciously tart-sweet, with some crunch from the topping, it’s quick and easy, and it’s the perfect way to use up any of that wonderful summer fruit that you haven’t quite managed to eat out-of-hand before it starts to get kinda squishy.

I had some apricots left from our trip to the Ferry Building Farmer’s Market in SF with Phillip and Jammie last weekend, and they needed to be eaten, stat.  I also had some cherries, so those were the two fruits I used, but really, this idea works with any summer fruit, and especially with the myriad different stone fruits.   You can use any amount of fruit, just bake it in a different size dish, and since there’s no pie crust to fuss with, you just make however much topping you need.  I ate mine topped with whipped cream, but it would also be good with ice cream, or just by itself.  Here are the proportions I used, but scale it up or down and substitute as you like.

Apricot-Cherry Crumble

Endlessly adaptable: substitute other fruits, nuts, and spices; scale it up or down.  Sugar may need to be adjusted depending on the type of fruit you use.  As it is, this serves 2.

For filling:
about 2 c apricots and cherries, cut into pieces (1″ or so)
1/2 T flour
1 t sugar
1 t lemon juice (optional)
1/8 t ginger (optional)
1/8 t cardamom (optional)

For crumble topping:
1 T flour
1 T brown sugar
1 T finely chopped pecans
1 T oats
pinch of salt
1/2 t crystallized ginger
1/4 t ground ginger

2 T butter

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Combine filling ingredients in a baking dish. Combine topping ingredients.  Sprinkle over the fruit and dot with butter.

Bake 350 F, about 30 minutes, until the fruit is bubbly and the topping is browned.

I had hazelnuts leftover from the hazelnut brown butter cake, and I’ve learned the hard way that hazelnuts can go rancid rather quickly if left on the shelf too long, so I wanted to go ahead and use up the ones I had.  I was in the mood for French toast, and we also had some stale leftover bread, so I thought adding a crust of hazelnuts would kill two birds for one dish.  We’ve been buying oranges by the bag, so I added some orange juice and zest to the soaking liquid, and threw in a little Cointreau for good measure (though if you don’t have any, you could easily leave that out).  The next weekend, I made it again with pecans instead of hazelnuts — great either way.  And a tip from my mom — if you have extra orange juice, stir some into the maple syrup to top the toast. Though it’s a little more work, I’m sure these would also be great topped with the syrup from our favorite orange nutty pancakes.

Hazelnut Orange French Toast

8 slices day-old French bread
1/2 cup hazelnuts, chopped pretty finely
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup orange juice (fresh squeezed if possible!)
zest from 1 orange
1 t cinnamon
1 T Cointreau (optional)
dash of salt (optional)
butter

Lightly beat the egg and add the milk and orange juice. Stir in the zest, cinnamon, salt, and Cointreau (if using).

Melt a couple teaspoons of butter in a large skillet or griddle over medium heat. When the butter is melted, dip each side of the bread in the egg mixture, dip one side in the nuts, and place, nut side down, on the skillet or griddle.

Cook over medium heat, about 5-7 minutes total per side, until golden brown. I often end up turning them back and forth a few times to make sure the inside gets done but the outside doesn’t brown too much (especially the nut side), after a French toast disaster in which the inside stayed a mushy eggy mess. (That’s also taught me not to try to use white sandwich bread for French toast, even if you really, really want French toast, and it’s the only thing in the house.)

If you’re using a skillet, it’ll take a couple batches. Keep the earlier batches warm on a platter in the oven on its lowest setting.

Top with heated maple syrup, mixed with a bit of orange juice if you like.

If you end up with leftovers, it’s pretty good re-toasted in the toaster oven.