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Dessert

Date Tart

A baked tart made with almonds, dates, butter, caster sugar, egg whites, and a breadcrumb base.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and dates work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 217 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Date Tart

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Chop the almonds finely and cut the dates into small pieces.

  2. Butter a shallow pie dish and sprinkle a few breadcrumbs over the bottom.

Make and bake

  1. Whip the egg whites to a stiff froth, then gently stir in the sugar, almonds, and dates.

  2. Pour the mixture into the dish and bake at 300°F (150°C) for about 30 minutes.

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. Almond + datestop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together217 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped to a stiff froth, they trap air and give the tart its light, set structure.
Almonds
Provide body and a nutty flavour, giving the tart substance against the airy whites.
Dates
Add natural sweetness and chewy moisture throughout the tart.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the mixture and helps stabilise the whipped egg whites.

The step that matters

Whipping the egg whites. Whites must be whipped to a stiff froth so they hold air. Stirring gently afterward keeps that air in, so the tart bakes up light rather than dense and flat.

Swap the dates

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, butter, sugar, 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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