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Dessert

Date Cookies

A sweet cookie made with dates, sugar, butter, flour, oats, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Oats and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,532 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Date Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil dates, water, and sugar together, then let cool.

Make the dough

  1. Cream together brown sugar and butter in a bowl.

  2. Add eggs, flour, rolled oats, vanilla, cream of tartar, and baking soda dissolved in hot water. Mix until combined.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough, place a little date mixture on one cookie, and top with another cookie.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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. Oats + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,532 recipes

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

  2. Dates + oatstop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together69 recipes

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

  3. Dates + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together218 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla 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

Dates
Provide the sweet, moist filling that sets inside the cookies.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and rich flavor in the dough.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cookie dough.
Rolled oats
Add chewy texture and a toasty, nutty flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar and brown sugar to help the cookies rise and brown.

The step that matters

Shape and bake. Too much filling or a dough that is too thin can cause the date mixture to leak out while baking. Keep the filling to a small amount and seal the edges well so the cookies hold their shape and bake evenly.

Swap the dates

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

  1. Blueberryfits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Datesthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, flour, oats, vanilla, cream. 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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