Skip to main content

Tastiest Cookie Ever

"This recipe is easy, tasty, and sweet. It's packed with sesame seeds, nuts and dates in a sweet cardamom dough. You are gonna love it."

Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Dates and sesame work together. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and 9 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol, which smells clove, smoky. The science ↓

The recipe

16 bars
Prep15 min
Cook20 min

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat, tree nuts, sesame (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Grease an 8-inch square pan with a little of the butter.

  2. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter and honey until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla and ground cardamom.

  3. Stir in the flour until just combined. Fold in the chopped dates, chopped walnuts and sesame seeds.

  4. Spread the batter evenly in the prepared pan. Bake for about 20 minutes, until golden at the edges and set in the center.

  5. Let the cookie cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then cut into bars. Once cool, dust the bars with confectioners' sugar before serving.

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Dates + sesametop 23% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together9 recipes

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

  2. Honey + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,262 recipes

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

  3. Cardamom + walnuttop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together90 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Vanilla + cardamomtop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together237 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Vanilla + datestop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together218 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the sesame

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, honey, egg, vanilla, cardamom, dates, walnut):

  1. Almondbetter flavor fit
  2. Pecansbetter flavor fit
  3. Pistachiobetter flavor fit
  4. Sesamethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, honey, egg, vanilla, cardamom, dates, walnut. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).