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Date & Apple Squares

A chewy, oaty tray bake with sticky dates and apples - bound to be a big hit.

By bbcgoodfood · From Open Recipes · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and oats work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 517 recipes mention both. Both carry damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

The recipe

MAKES 8
Prep20 min
Cook35 min

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Heat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Grease a 20cm (8-inch) square baking tin with a little of the extra butter.

  2. Put the chopped apples and dates in a saucepan with a splash of water. Cover and simmer gently for 8 to 10 minutes, until soft. Mash lightly and leave to cool.

  3. Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat. Remove from the heat and stir in the sugar, then the flour, bicarbonate of soda and porridge oats until evenly combined.

  4. Press half of the oat mixture firmly into the base of the prepared tin.

  5. Spread the cooled apple and date mixture evenly over the base.

  6. Crumble the remaining oat mixture over the top and press it down lightly.

  7. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until golden brown on top and set in the middle.

  8. Leave to cool in the tin for 15 minutes, then cut into squares while still warm and let them cool fully before serving.

By bbcgoodfood. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Apple + oatstop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together517 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Butter + oatstop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Apple + datestop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together119 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Butter + appletop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,692 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-undecalactone (peach, sweet).

  5. Butter + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together122,858 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 122,858 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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