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Surprise Dessert

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Surprise Dessert

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut stars from the slices of white bread.

  2. Spread the stars with the date paste.

  3. If desired, spread nut butter on the bread before adding the dates.

  4. Top each star with a small pyramid of jelly, shaped using a teaspoon.

  5. Serve in individual dishes with nut cream or coconut cream.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Bread + datestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together100 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Dates + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together513 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  5. Bread + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,789 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

Swap the dates

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raspberryfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Datesthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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