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Date Meringue

A baked meringue with dates and almonds, sweetened with fruit sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Date Meringue

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and stone the dates, then blanch the almonds.

  2. Chop the nuts and dates together, then mix in half of the sugar.

Make the meringue

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff using a wire beater.

  2. Gradually add the remaining sugar and vanilla extract to the egg whites.

  3. Fold in the date and nut mixture very lightly.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a shallow buttered pan (about 1" by 13").

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 250°F to 275°F for 1 hour.

  3. Cut into bars or squares while hot and transfer to a cake cooler.

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. Almond + datestop 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

Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that gives the bake its light, airy structure.
Fruit sugar
Sweetens the meringue and helps stabilise the whipped egg white foam.
Shelled almonds
Add body and a crisp, chewy texture to the baked bars.
Dates
Add moisture and natural sweetness, giving a soft, chewy texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the date and nut mixture. Folding very lightly keeps air trapped in the whipped egg whites. Vigorous stirring deflates the foam, leaving a dense, flat result instead of a light bake.

Swap the dates

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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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