Name: Date Dainties
Ingredients: good whole dates; boiling water; cold water; nut butter or any kind of nut; pulverized sugar

Why it works: Butter and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 98,233 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Date Dainties

Ingredients

Directions

Select good whole dates and carefully pick them apart without mashing.
Pour boiling water over the dates and shake for 1 minute.
Drain the dates and pour cold water over them, then drain again.
With a sharp knife, cut open one side of each date lengthwise and remove the pit.
Fill the pit's place with nut butter or any kind of nut, then close the date.
Roll the filled date in pulverized sugar.

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.

Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Dates + sugartop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together985 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Dates + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together513 recipes

Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).