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Dessert

Stuffed and Candied Dates

A sweet treat of dates filled with pecans and coated in a sugar-cream mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Dates and pecans share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Stuffed and Candied Dates

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the seeds from the dates.

  2. Place half a pecan in each seed cavity.

Coat and dry

  1. Mix the confectioner’s sugar, cream, and vanilla in a bowl.

  2. Dip each stuffed date in the sugar mixture.

  3. Optionally, roll the dates in finely chopped pecans or almond meal after dipping.

  4. Lay the dipped dates on plates to dry.

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 + pecanstop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together88 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Pecans + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,691 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

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

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

Dates
Provide the soft, sticky sweet body that holds the filling and candy coating.
Pecans
Add a crunchy, nutty filling that contrasts with the soft date.
Confectioner’s sugar
Forms a smooth, sweet glaze that dries into a thin candy shell.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture so the sugar mixture spreads and coats smoothly.

The step that matters

Dip each stuffed date in the sugar mixture. The sugar mixture must be smooth and the right consistency; if it is too thin it drips off, and if too thick it forms a clumpy, uneven coat. Letting the coating dry fully on the plates sets the glaze.

Swap the pecans

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pecansthe original
  4. Brazil nutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against dates, sugar, cream, 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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