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Cream of Wheat with Dates

A simple cereal dish served with dates, cream, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Cream of Wheat with Dates

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Take little enamel or earthen cups.

  2. Stand the date strips against the sides of the cups.

Set and serve

  1. Fill the cups with cereal.

  2. Place in a cool area to stiffen.

  3. Turn out onto saucers and serve with cream and sugar.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Dates + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together985 recipes

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

  3. Dates + creamtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together276 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

Cereal
Forms the body of the dish and firms into a shape as it cools and its starch sets.
Dates
Add natural sweetness and a chewy texture against the soft cereal.
Cream
Adds richness and fat to balance the plain, starchy cereal.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the serving.

The step that matters

Place in a cool area to stiffen.. The cereal must cool fully before turning out. As warm starch cools it gels and firms, so unmoulding too early will leave the cups sagging or breaking rather than holding their shape.

Swap the dates

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Datesthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar. 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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