​Date and walnut loaf

This recipe is a sort of fusion of 2 plus recipes (taken from Taste.com.au - my favourite online recipe source - and SBS Food). I tend to fiddle and tweak but this is pretty basic and simple to make.
I am calling it the 'cuppa' recipe - measured in cups and with a tea bag added to give a little extra flav.

Wobbly towers of sticky yummyness straight out of their cooking pots.
The cans in the background are what these were cooked in (and waiting to be washed!) 

Ingredients
1 cup boiling water
1 tea bag
1 cup dates cut in large chunks
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup (3 tbsp) butter
1 tsp bicarb soda
1 3/4 cups SR flour
pinch salt
100 g walnuts chopped only a little (you want lovey chunks of walnuts and dates throughout the loaf)

Method
* Steep teabag in the boiling water then discard bag.
* Place water in saucepan with sugar, butter, dates and bicarb and bring to the boil, simmer 30-60 sec then cool.
* Mix flour, salt and walnuts then add the cooled date mixture.
* Cook
* Serve thick slices with slabs of butter.

Oven bake method
Place mixture in greased loaf pan and bake in 170 degree C for 50-55 mins
Turn out onto wire rack to cool
DreamPot method
Divide mixture between three 420 gm fruit/soup tins sprayed with oil (or greased).
Cover tightly with oiled foil and place on 3cm trivet (empty sandwich tuna cans work well) in large inner pot. Fill to half way up side of cans with hot water.
Boil gently for 15 mins (with lid on) then place in DreamPot, close and leave for at least 45 mins to cook.
Turn out to cool. They will be sticky when you firstbturn them out but will dry out with cooling.

Chook's hint: If you don't have either oven or dream pot, I reckon you could do this in a large pot on the stove top. Boil gently for 15-20 mins with lid on, then reduce heat to a low simmer for a further 30-45 mins. You'd need to check water levels from time to time to make sure it didn't boil dry.  Timing is a bit of a guess so see how it goes. Don't you just love experiments!?