This weekend will be hot in the Southern hempisphere and relatively cooler in the North but no matter where we are, there’s never enough time and we seem to be rushing wherever we go. It’s not only a matter of working hard or having full schedules, rushing has become fashionable and those of us that sit and relax, for whatever reason, are always made to feel a little guilty. We don’t stop to smell the flowers, nor do we really enjoy the things we buy with the money we make from rushing around. So why are we rushing?Dates are mainly grown in Arabia and North Africa but also in California.

This recipe is Moroccan in origin and orignated in the Bo-Kaap of Cape Town, South Africa

Ingredients

• 500 g whole pitted dates
• 200 g pecan nuts
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 lemon, zest and juice
• 100 grams sugar
• ½ teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 teaspoon cardamom seeds (remove the seeds from the pods)
• 1 large stick cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon ground allspice
• 8 sheets yufka pastry (again, if you don’t have, don’t sweat use filo or any Asian flat dough)
• 4 oranges

Garnish

50 grams sugar

4 whole cloves

Fresh mint leaves

Method

Pre heat oven to 180 C

• For the garnish, boil the 50 grams of the sugar with the whole cloves in about 500 ml water and reduce to half, set aside, allow to cool down and refrigerate until needed;
• Dice the dates finely, add the lemon zest and set aside the juice;
• Cook the dates with 70 grams of the sugar, all the spices and add the lemon juice right at the end;
• Crush the nuts in a pestle and mortar, add to the dates and stir well (don’t use processor here because you’ll get a mush)
• Melt the butter on cool/medium heat, place 2 sheets of the dough, one on top of the other and brush with melted butter;
• Spoon some date mixture on these and roll up to form small flutes, sticking the ends together with some egg yolk;
• Brush with more melted butter, sprinkle with remaining sugar and bake for about 4 minutes.
• As always, keep an eye on your dessert.
• Peel the oranges, slice thinly, remove all signs of pith and place on a dish, drizzle with the clove syrup, top with one roll, halved and decorate with mint.

You are free to serve as you wish but there’s nothing like a blob of good vanilla ice cream with these.