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Pecan Cream Date Glaces

Pecan cream dates are pecan-filled dates coated in a caramelized sugar glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pecans and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,691 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Pecan Cream Date Glaces

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Grind the pecans and knead them into the bonbon cream.

  2. Add vanilla flavor and roll the mixture into small balls.

  3. Stuff each ball into a date, shaping it to show the cream in the opening.

Make the syrup and coat

  1. In a saucepan, cook the sugar with a pinch of cream of tartar and enough water to dissolve it until it reaches 290°F (143°C).

  2. Add the glucose and continue cooking until it reaches 300°F (149°C).

  3. Remove from heat and dip each date in the syrup one at a time using a fork.

  4. Lay the dipped dates on a greased slab to cool.

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.

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. Pecans + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,691 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Pecans + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together706 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Vanilla and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Pecans
Add nutty flavor and body to the filling, giving it a textured bite.
Bonbon cream
Forms the soft, creamy center that the dates are stuffed with.
Sugar
Forms the sweet syrup that sets into a crisp, glossy coating on the dates.
Glucose
Helps prevent crystallization in the syrup, keeping the coating smooth.

The step that matters

Cooking the syrup to 300°F (149°C). Syrup temperature controls the coating's hardness once cooled. Stopping early leaves it soft and sticky, while overcooking can make it brittle or darken, so a thermometer helps keep the stage accurate.

Swap the pecans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, vanilla, sugar):

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits better
  4. Pecansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, vanilla, sugar. 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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