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Dessert

Date Pie

A sweet pie made with dates, milk, eggs, and pumpkin pie spices, baked in a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Dates and pumpkin share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol, which smells clove, smoky. The science ↓

Date Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dates

  1. Stew the dates in water until soft.

  2. Drain the dates; you should have about 1 cup.

Make the filling

  1. Add milk and beaten eggs to the dates.

  2. Season with spices as you would for pumpkin pie.

Bake

  1. Bake in a pie crust.

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 + pumpkintop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together15 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  2. Milk + pumpkintop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

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

  5. Egg + pumpkintop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,985 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Dates
Provide the main sweetness and a thick, smooth body once softened and mashed.
Eggs
Set the filling into a sliceable custard as they cook, giving it structure.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, softening the filling and keeping it tender.

The step that matters

Drain the dates to about 1 cup. Excess stewing water thins the filling, so it may not set firmly when baked with the eggs and milk. Measuring the drained dates keeps the liquid balance right.

Swap the dates

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Datesthe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, pumpkin. 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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