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Dessert

Creamed Dates

A sweet treat made by coating dates in a sugar fondant.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Creamed Dates

Ingredients

Directions

Make the fondant

  1. Boil the sugar in a saucepan until it reaches the soft ball stage.

  2. Pour the sugar onto a large platter and sprinkle with cold water.

  3. Let it cool until you can touch it with the back of your hand.

  4. Stir the sugar with a small wooden spoon until it becomes white and firm.

  5. Knead the sugar with your hands until it is soft enough to roll into a ball.

Fill and coat the dates

  1. Remove the pits from the dates and fill them with a small amount of the sugar mixture or a blanched almond.

  2. In a small saucepan, combine the fondant, vanilla, and water, and heat over a pan of water until dissolved, avoiding boiling.

  3. Dip the filled dates into the melted fondant and place them on slightly buttered tins.

  4. If the fondant is too thick, add a little water gradually.

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 + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Dates + almondtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together217 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Dates + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together218 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Granulated sugar
Forms the fondant, which gives the creamy, smooth coating around the dates.
Large dates
Serve as the sweet, moist case that holds the filling.
Blanched almonds
Provide a firm, crunchy centre inside the dates.

The step that matters

Heating the fondant without boiling. Heating the fondant gently until dissolved, without boiling, keeps it smooth and fluid for dipping. Boiling again can turn the sugar grainy or make the coating too thick to work with.

Swap the dates

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, almond, vanilla. 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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