Skip to main content
Dessert

Date Ceeams

Dates filled with a stiffened egg white and sugar mixture, optionally topped with nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Vanilla and almond 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 Ceeams

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream

  1. In a bowl, break the egg white and add the water.

  2. Stir in confectioners' sugar until the mixture is stiff enough to mold.

  3. Flavor with vanilla extract.

Fill and coat the dates

  1. Seed the dates and fill the cavity with the cream, allowing it to protrude.

  2. Optionally, place a little cream on top of the dates.

  3. Place a nut in the cavity of the date.

  4. Roll the date in cream.

  5. Cover with a thick layer of cream.

Dry

  1. Dry the filled dates on oiled paper.

  2. Let the dates dry for twelve hours.

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. Vanilla + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Vanilla + datestop 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 white
Whips into a stiff, moldable base that holds the cream's shape.
Confectioners' sugar
Sweetens the cream and stiffens it into a paste that sets as it dries.
Shapely dates
Serve as the sweet, moist shell that holds the cream filling.

The step that matters

Let the dates dry for twelve hours. The cream sets as its surface dries, so the dates must rest undisturbed for the full time. Handling them early can smear or crack the coating and leave it tacky.

Swap the almond

The recipe marks almond as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, vanilla, dates):

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pecansfits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Walnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, vanilla, dates. 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.

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesStuffed DatesStuffed Dates32 recipesAlmond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipesAlmond CustardAlmond Custard22 recipes