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Dessert

Date Cookies

Cookies made with dates, sugar, butter, flour, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Date Cookies

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

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

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Add the milk, vanilla, chopped dates, and egg; mix well.

  3. In another bowl, combine the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until combined.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the dough onto well-buttered baking sheets.

  2. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until lightly 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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Vanilla + datestop 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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and adds richness and tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cookies and helps them brown and spread when baked.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds structure and moisture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar to produce gas that lifts the cookies.
Cream of tartar
Acidic ingredient that works with baking soda to help the cookies rise and stay tender.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Adding flour gradually and stopping mixing once combined keeps the dough from overdeveloping gluten, which would make the cookies tough.

Swap the dates

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, flour, vanilla, egg, 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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