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Dessert

Date Pie

A sweet pie made with pitted dates, eggs, milk, spices, and a pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Dates and milk work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 470 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Date Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine the pitted dates, eggs, salt, and spices.

  3. Add enough milk to fill two deep pie plates.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into the pie crust.

  2. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until set.

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 + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  3. Dates + eggtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 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 main sweetness and body, and their moisture helps make the filling soft.
Eggs
Set the filling as they heat, giving it structure and a custard-like texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and liquid that the eggs set into a creamy, tender filling.

The step that matters

Bake until set. The eggs thicken the filling as they heat. Bake until it is just set in the centre. Overbaking makes the eggs curdle and weep, while underbaking leaves the filling runny.

Swap the dates

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Lemonfits about as well
  4. Datesthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk. 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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