Christmas get together with my HS classmates

A few days ago, we had our HS Christmas get together in my house.  There were delicious food and drinks contributed by everybody: Cher, Catherine, Mona, Sarita, Serla, Jennifer, Lei, Jo, Marianne, Chen, Pinky, Tin and Bubbles.

We had ......

Lechon Kawali

Pancit Palabok

Pork Barbeque

Paksiw Lechon

Roasted Chicken from Chooks to Go

Fried Lumpiang Ubod

Palitaw

Arce Mango Ice cream

Mango Bravo from Conti's

Chocolate Mousse from Red Ribbon

Food for the Gods from Mary Grace

Several bottles of wine and soda

Everybody liked the Fried Ubod I made so I'm sharing the recipe.

Fried Lumpiang Ubod.

I let them try  my Food for the Gods, but was very stingy  hahahaha just gave them 1 each because I baked it for my doctor as my Christmas gift.  I'm not going to be modest, and will say it's the best!  Moist and chewy.

Food for the Gods (adapted from The Maya Kitchen cookbook)

1 C. butter
1 C. white sugar
1 C. dark brown sugar
3 eggs
1 1/4 C. flour
1 t. baking soda
1 t. baking powder
200 g. Iranian dates, chopped
1 C. walnuts, chopped

Remove butter from the refrigerator 30 minutes before baking.  Combine flour, baking powder and baking soda.  Dredge dates with 1/2 cup of the flour mixture. Grease and line with greaseproof paper or GLAD bake  a 13 x 9 baking pan.  Pre-heat oven to 350 F.

Cream butter, add white and brown sugar... then the eggs one at a time.  Do NOT overbeat or else you will have a cake/brownie like texture.  Fold in the flour,  then the dates, fold in the walnuts last.

Bake at 350F for 10 minutes, then lower the temperature to 300F.  Bake 30 minutes more.  Cool for 10 minutes then invert the pan onto a cooling rack, remove paper while still warm.  Slice after letting it cool for about an hour.  Wrap in foil so it will be moist.

Update: If I follow the baking time in the recipe above, the center always collapses so I experimented using different pans at 350F.

Use a 9x9 baking pan lined with Glad paper if you want a cakey version.
Use a 9x 13 pan for a bar type version.
Bake at 350F for 30 minutes.