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Dessert

Date Kisses

A baked treat of chopped dates, figs, walnuts, and beaten egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Dates and fig work together. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 318 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol, which smells clove, smoky. The science ↓

Date Kisses

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

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

  2. Pit and finely chop the dates, figs, and walnuts.

Make and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix the chopped dates, figs, and walnuts with the beaten egg white.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto a baking sheet.

  3. Bake until set and lightly golden.

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 + figtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together318 recipes

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

  2. Walnut + figtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together373 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Dates + walnuttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together302 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Dates + eggtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Walnut + eggtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,037 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Dates
Provide sweetness and a soft, chewy body to the cookies.
Egg white
Binds the chopped fruit and nuts together so the mixture holds its shape.
Walnuts
Add crunch and a slightly bitter, nutty flavor that balances the sweetness.
Figs
Add moisture, sweetness, and chewy texture to the mixture.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg white. Beaten egg white holds air, so it should be gently folded in rather than overmixed, which would deflate it and make the drops spread or turn dense.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Pecansfits better
  2. Almondfits about as well
  3. Walnutthe original
  4. Mixed nutsfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against dates, fig, egg. 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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