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Stuffed Dates

Dates stuffed with walnut or peanut, coated in sugar, and set in a fondant glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Stuffed Dates

Why it works: Dates and walnut work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 302 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Stuffed Dates

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dates

  1. Wipe the dates and make a cut along their entire length.

  2. Remove the stones and fill each date with one-fourth of an English walnut or one-half of a peanut.

  3. Press lightly and roll the dates in granulated sugar.

Make the fondant

  1. In a saucepan, combine 1 cup sugar, 1/16 teaspoon cream of tartar, and 4 cups boiling water.

  2. Stir until the sugar dissolves, then remove the spoon.

  3. Heat gradually to boiling point and boil slowly without stirring until it reaches the soft ball stage.

  4. Remove from heat and let it stand for a minute.

  5. Pour slowly onto an oiled plate and let it stand undisturbed until almost cold.

  6. Beat with a wooden spoon until white and creamy, then work it in your hands until perfectly smooth.

  7. Put the fondant in a glass, cover with oiled paper, and let it stand for 24 hours or longer.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Dates + walnuttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together302 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Dates + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together985 recipes

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

  4. Walnut + creamtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Sugar + walnuttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,147 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Dissolves and cooks into the syrup that sets into a smooth, creamy fondant.
Cream of tartar
Acid that helps prevent crystals from forming, keeping the fondant smooth.

The step that matters

Boil without stirring until soft ball stage. Stirring during boiling can trigger sugar crystallisation, leaving a grainy fondant instead of a smooth one. Stop at the soft ball stage, since cooking further produces a harder candy.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pecansfits better
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against dates, sugar, cream. 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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