“Oh dear ... you say you actually did that to some poor candidate ...??” ;-)

Yes, I always ask job candidates to write code.

I'm often surprised when a candidate “talks a good game” ... but then “struggles” when asked to write “actual working code”. Perhaps I'm being unfair -- though I'm sure you would pass with flying colours -- but I always insist that the code actually runs. I don't accept extemporaneous code™ or even “a quasi-Perl sketch with C++ comments”(!)®   ;-)

I'm still not at all confident of my interviewing skills though. See On Interviewing and Interview Questions for some history of my struggles with interviewing over the years.