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Dessert

Cream Dates

A sweet filling of butter, lemon juice, and milk served in seeded dates.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cream Dates

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream

  1. Boil sugar and sweet milk in a saucepan for about 10 minutes.

  2. Add butter and let the mixture cool until lukewarm.

  3. Beat in lemon juice until the mixture becomes soft and creamy.

Fill and serve

  1. Fill seeded dates with the cream and serve.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  3. Milk + datestop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Dissolves into the milk and, as it cooks, sets the mixture into a soft, sweet cream.
Sweet milk
Forms the liquid base that the sugar cooks into a creamy mass.
Butter
Adds fat, which softens the texture and gives the cream a smoother mouthfeel.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and helps the cream turn soft and creamy.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool until lukewarm before beating in lemon juice. Sugar mixtures crystallize or set unevenly when they are beaten while still very hot. Cooling to lukewarm lets the cream thicken smoothly and stay soft when the lemon juice is added.

Swap the dates

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Datesthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, butter, lemon. 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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