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Date Filling

A sweet filling made by cooking dates with water and sugar until thickened.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Dates and sugar work together. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 985 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Date Filling

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and remove the pits from the dates.

Cook the filling

  1. In a saucepan, combine the dates, water, and sugar.

  2. Cook over medium heat until the mixture thickens.

  3. Remove from heat and let it cool.

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

Dates
Provide the bulk of the filling and its natural sweetness and body as they soften.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cooked mixture thicken into a spreadable texture.
Water
Softens the dates and carries heat so they break down into a smooth mass.

The step that matters

Cook over medium heat until the mixture thickens. Cooking too fast can scorch the sugar and dates on the bottom of the pan. Gentle heat lets the dates break down and the mixture thicken evenly before cooling.

“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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