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Dessert

Date Bars

A sweet baked bar made with dates, nuts, eggs, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Dates and nuts work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 178 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Date Bars

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure. The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Cream the brown sugar with the egg yolks.

  3. Beat the egg whites until light and fluffy, then fold them into the yolk mixture.

  4. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, and salt.

  5. Stir the flour mixture into the egg mixture.

  6. Fold in the chopped dates and nuts.

Bake and serve

  1. Spread the batter in a buttered pan.

  2. Bake for about 25-30 minutes or until golden.

  3. Let cool, then cut into squares.

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 + nutstop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together178 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Nuts + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Dates + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Eggs
Whipped whites lighten the batter, and yolks add richness and binding.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the bars brown as they bake.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the bars together once baked.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the bars rise and turn lighter.
Dates
Add natural sweetness and a soft, chewy moisture to the bars.
Nuts
Add crunch and a toasty flavor that contrasts with the soft dates.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites hold air only if beaten until light and fluffy, and gentle folding keeps that air in the batter. Stirring hard would deflate it, leaving the bars dense.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Mixed nutsfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against dates, egg, sugar, flour. 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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