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Dessert

Date Pie

A pie made with dates, milk, eggs, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Dates and milk work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 470 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Date Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dates

  1. Soak the dates overnight.

  2. Stew the dates until they can be mashed through a sieve.

Make the filling and bake

  1. Mix the mashed dates with milk, eggs, and salt.

  2. Pour the filling into a pie crust and bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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 body, softening into a mashable pulp when stewed.
Milk
Adds liquid and richness, helping the filling set into a smooth custard-like texture.
Eggs
Set the filling as they cook, giving structure to the baked pie.

The step that matters

Stew the dates until smooth enough to sieve. Dates that are not softened fully will leave lumps or fibrous pieces in the filling. Thorough stewing breaks down the fruit so it blends evenly with the milk and eggs, giving a smooth texture after baking.

Swap the dates

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Lemonfits about as well
  4. Datesthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, 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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