Versatile fruit bread

A couple of weeks ago I made a date loaf. It got rave reviews on the recipe site, but I wasn't impressed by it. On a scale of 'sponge to mud' cake, I like my date loaf up near the mud cake end. This version was too close to the sponge cake end.

Last week I made banana bread. Every one really enjoyed the recipe. The texture of the bread was far more like the texture I'm looking for in a date loaf. Instead of trying another recipe, I thought perhaps I could just substitute dates for bananas. It turned out okay. A little too sweet with the dates, and perhaps a little short on full date flavour.

The original recipe and the date option.

Ingredients - Banana Bread
3 or 4 ripe bananas, mashed. According to one site this is about a cup of banana.
80g (1/3 cup) of melted butter
3/4 cup sugar. Original recipe was for 1 cup. Even 3/4s was on the sweet side.
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp vanilla (I only ever use beans or bean paste)
1 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
1.5 cups of plain flour
 Ingredients - Date Loaf
As above except:
1.5 cups of cut dates soaked in 1 cup of boiling water. Next time I will put the soaked dates through the blender, which may help to 'spread' the flavour a little.
1/2 cup of sugar. This still way sweeter than necessary. Next time I will use only 1/4 cup.

Method - either
Preheat oven to 175°C (350°F).
Stir butter into fruit.
Stir in sugar, egg and vanilla.
Sprinkle salt and baking soda over the mix and stir in.
Stir in flour.
All stirring with a wooden spoon; no need for 'lectric. Pour into greased loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour. In my small oven, after about 40 minutes I need to cover with foil to prevent the top from burning.
Eat lots of it. Good warm straight out of the oven. Good the next day with butter on it.