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Dessert

Date Dessert

A baked dessert of dates, walnuts, sugar, eggs, and baking powder, topped with whipped cream and candied cherries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Dates and walnut work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 302 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Date Dessert

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Chop the dates in a tablespoon of flour to prevent sticking.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine chopped dates, sugar, walnut meats, and the yolks of the eggs.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture.

  3. Add the baking powder and mix gently.

  4. Pour the mixture into a buttered pan.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for about 40 minutes.

  2. Cut into squares and serve with whipped cream and a candied cherry on top.

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. Dates + walnuttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together302 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Walnut + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Walnut + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,035 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whipped whites give the cake its light, airy structure, while the yolks add richness.
Dates
Provide moisture and natural sweetness, giving the cake its chewy texture.
Walnut meats
Add body and a nutty flavor, contributing to the cake's dense texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking to help the cake rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep it moist and tender.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stiff whites hold the air that lifts the batter. Folding gently keeps that air in; overmixing deflates it and leaves a flatter, denser cake.

Swap the dates

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, walnut, meat, egg, flour, cream):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Datesthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, walnut, meat, egg, flour, 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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