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Dessert

Stuffed Dates

A sweet treat made by stuffing dates with preserved ginger, candied pineapple, orange, nuts, marshmallow, or nut meat, then rolling in sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Stuffed Dates

Why it works: Ginger and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,833 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Stuffed Dates

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Remove the pits from the dates.

  2. Stuff each date with finely chopped preserved ginger, candied pineapple, orange, or nuts.

  3. Roll the stuffed dates in granulated sugar.

  4. Alternatively, stuff dates with a piece of marshmallow and a nut meat.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Ginger + orangetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,833 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Pineapple + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,664 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Ginger + pineappletop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together559 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  4. Dates + orangetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together151 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  5. Dates + pineappletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together53 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Dates
Provide the sweet, soft fruit base that holds the stuffing.
Granulated sugar
Forms a sweet, dry coating on the outside of the stuffed dates.
Marshmallow
Adds a soft, sweet filling that melts slightly against the date.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (dates, ginger, pineapple, orange, sugar, meat):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Walnutfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against dates, ginger, pineapple, orange, sugar, meat. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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