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Dessert

Delicious Date and Nut Squares

A baked dessert of dates, pecans, flour, sugar, and butter, cut into squares.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Dates and vanilla work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 218 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Delicious Date and Nut Squares

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

  2. Grease a shallow baking pan with butter to prevent sticking.

  3. In a bowl, combine the dates, sugar, water, and flour.

  4. Add the baking powder, chopped pecans, and vanilla extract. Mix until well combined; the mixture will be very thick.

Bake and serve

  1. Place a vessel of hot water under the pan to keep the mixture moist while baking.

  2. Bake until golden brown, 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 + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together218 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Dates
Provide sweetness, moisture and chewy body to the squares.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together as it bakes.
Pecans
Add texture and a toasted, nutty flavor.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the mixture rises and becomes lighter.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown during baking.

The step that matters

Keeping the mixture moist while baking. The mixture is very thick and dry-textured, so it can dry out or scorch in the oven. The hot water under the pan adds humidity to the oven, which helps keep the squares soft while the surface browns evenly.

Swap the dates

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, meat, sugar, butter, vanilla. 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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