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Date Pie

A pie made with dates, milk, eggs, sugar, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Dates and cinnamon work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 283 recipes. Both carry anethole, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

Date Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dates

  1. Soak the dates in warm water overnight.

  2. Stew and sift the dates to create a pulp.

Make the filling and bake

  1. In a bowl, combine the date pulp with beaten eggs, cinnamon, milk, and sugar.

  2. Pour the mixture into a pie crust and bake.

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 + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together283 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  2. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 main body, sweetness and flavor of the filling once cooked to a pulp.
Eggs
Set the filling as they cook, giving it structure and a sliceable texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, thinning the pulp into a smooth custard-like filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the tartness of the dates.
Cinnamon
Contributes warm aromatic flavor to the filling.

The step that matters

Stew and sift the dates to create a pulp. Sifting removes skins and fibers so the filling bakes smooth rather than stringy or grainy. A thoroughly softened pulp also blends evenly with the eggs and milk.

Swap the dates

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sugar, cinnamon. 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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