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Dessert

Shape of Dates

A gelatin set dessert of dates, sherry, and sugar, served with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Dates and almond work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 217 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Shape of Dates

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dates

  1. Boil the dates in 2 cups of water for 10 minutes.

  2. Drain the dates and rinse them under cold water.

  3. Remove the skins and pits from the dates.

Make the syrup

  1. Soak the gelatin in a little cold water.

  2. In a saucepan, combine sugar, water, and soaked gelatin to make a syrup.

  3. Add the dates to the syrup and bring to a boil.

  4. Stir in the sherry.

Set and serve

  1. Line a mold with blanched almonds.

  2. Pour the date mixture into the mold.

  3. Let it cool.

  4. Serve with whipped cream.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Gelatin + sugartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sherry + almondtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together517 recipes

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

  4. Dates + sherrytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together26 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Dates
Provide the main body, sweetness and soft chewy texture of the dessert.
Gelatin
Sets the syrup so the date mixture holds its shape when unmolded.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and adds body to the set dessert.
Sherry
Adds aroma and a warm, fruity flavour to the dates.
Almonds
Add nutty flavour and a contrasting texture on the outside of the mold.

The step that matters

Soak the gelatin before dissolving it. Gelatin must hydrate in cold liquid before it is heated; added dry or to hot liquid it clumps and will not set evenly, so the dessert may fail to hold its shape.

Swap the dates

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Datesthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against gelatin, sugar, sherry, almond. 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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