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Stuffed Dromedary Dates
1 package Dromedary Dates Dromedary Cocoanut, chopped 1 teaspoon vanilla extract Chopped nut meats Sugar Powdered cinnamon Remove stones from Dromedary Dates, fill with cocoanut mixed with extract. Press dates into shape and roll in a mixture of nut meats, sugar and cinnamon.
A no-cook confection with no stated quantities beyond the dates, so the proportions are yours to judge. A few notes on the ingredients and on what "press dates into shape" is really asking for.
- What a package wasDromedary sold dates in cartons of varying size, so a "package" here is not a fixed quantity; take it as roughly a pound, or something under 50 dates. On that assumption, about 1 cup of shredded coconut and 1/2 cup of finely chopped nuts is a reasonable starting point, and adjust as you go.
- "Cocoanut" means shredded, not flourThe Dromedary product was shredded dried coconut. Modern sweetened flaked coconut works directly; unsweetened desiccated coconut is much drier and wants a spoonful of cream, honey or corn syrup along with the vanilla so the filling holds together.
- PittingSlit each date lengthwise along one side and lift the stone out rather than cutting it in half, so the fruit closes back around the filling. Today's dates usually come pitted, in which case widen the existing cavity with a fingertip.
- Pressing into shapeThis is the hinge of the recipe. Pinch the slit closed and roll the date firmly between your palms until it is a smooth plump oval; a loosely closed date leaks filling and will not take an even coat.
- The rolling mixtureChop the nuts fine, near to a coarse meal, or they will not adhere. Roughly equal parts nuts and granulated sugar with cinnamon to taste is a workable coat; the sugar sticks best while the date surface is still slightly tacky.
- Dates that have dried outOlder or refrigerated dates go stiff and split when pressed. Steam them a minute or two, or hold them briefly in a covered bowl with a damp towel, then let them cool before filling.
- Yield and keepingReckon on somewhere under 50 sweets from a pound of dates, enough for a good-sized candy dish. Store them in a tin between sheets of parchment; they should keep a week or two at room temperature, and the coating will stay drier than it would in the refrigerator.
Dromedary was the date and coconut brand of the Hills Brothers Company of New York, and this booklet is advertising literature: every ingredient that carries a capital letter is something the company sold. Stuffed dates belong to a whole family of "uncooked confections" that filled American candy pages from the 1890s onward, when cheap packaged dates, figs and shredded coconut arrived in grocery stores and put a respectable homemade sweet within reach of anyone with a paring knife and no candy thermometer. Dates were long a holiday and church-supper item in the United States rather than everyday fruit; commercial date growing in California's Coachella Valley was only getting under way in the early twentieth century, and most of what Americans ate at this period was imported from the Persian Gulf and North Africa \\ the trepidation aside, that is the trade the brand's camel name is often said to evoke.