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Dessert

Date Tarts

A baked tart made with dates, almonds, egg whites, powdered sugar, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Date Tarts

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fruit and nuts

  1. Shell and blanch the almonds.

  2. Remove the stones from the dates.

  3. Chop the almonds and dates together, but not too fine.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add the powdered sugar while continuing to beat.

  2. Add the vanilla and the chopped mixture to the egg whites.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto a buttered baking sheet.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 25-30 minutes.

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. Almond + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Dates + almondtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together217 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Dates + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together218 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

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

  5. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff foam, they give the tarts their light, airy structure.
Powdered sugar
Stabilizes the whipped whites and adds sweetness to the tarts.
Dates
Provide moisture and natural sweetness, giving the tarts a chewy texture.
Almonds
Add body, nutty flavor, and a bit of richness to the mixture.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff, then adding the sugar gradually. Whites that are under-whipped or deflated when the sugar goes in will not hold their foam, so the tarts will spread flat and turn dense instead of light.

Swap the dates

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Blueberryfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Datesthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, almond, 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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