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Dessert

Date Cookies

Date cookies are made with dates, flour, walnuts, butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, brandy, baking soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Dates and vanilla work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 218 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Date Cookies

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, combine the dates, flour, walnuts, and salt.

  3. In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Make the dough

  1. Add the beaten eggs, vanilla, and brandy to the butter mixture and mix well.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in water and add it to the mixture.

  3. Combine the wet and dry ingredients to form a stiff dough.

  4. Roll out the dough and cut it into small cakes.

Bake

  1. Place the cakes on a baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden.

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 + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together218 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Walnut + vanillatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,730 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Vanilla + brandytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air and adds tenderness and richness to the cookies.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the stiff dough together while baking.
Dates
Add moisture and natural sweetness, keeping the cookies soft and chewy.
Walnuts
Add crunch and a toasty, nutty flavor that contrasts with the soft dates.
Baking soda
Reacts with the dough to help it rise and promotes gentle browning.

The step that matters

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beating butter and sugar together traps air bubbles that expand in the oven, giving the cookies lift and an even, tender crumb. Under-creaming leaves them dense.

Swap the dates

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, walnut, egg, butter, sugar, vanilla, brandy):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Datesthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, walnut, egg, butter, sugar, vanilla, brandy. 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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