Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Creamed Dates
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
In a saucepan, combine water and sugar.
Add cream of tartar and bring to a boil.
Test the mixture in water to see if it becomes gummy.
Beat and fill
Remove from heat and beat until cool, white, and sugary.
Stone the dates and fill them with the candy.
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.
-
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, 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 syrup that cooks down to a sweet, firm candy base.
- Cream of tartar
- Acid that helps keep the sugar from crystallizing into a grainy texture.
- Water
- Dissolves the sugar so it heats evenly before the syrup thickens.
The step that matters
Beating the cooled syrup until white and sugary. As the hot syrup cools and is beaten, sugar forms many tiny crystals, which makes the candy smooth and opaque. Beating too early or too late gives a different texture, so the cook should watch for the change from glossy to white.
“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.
You might also like
White Cake431 recipes
Pound Cake373 recipes
Orange Bundt Cake349 recipes
Spice Cake344 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.