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Walnut and Date Dainty
1 cup sugar Pinch of salt 1 tablespoon sifted flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 cup walnut meats 1 teaspoon lemon extract 1 cup chopped dates Marshmallows to decorate Beat the eggs with the sugar and salt for five minutes; add the flour mixed with the baking powder, the nuts, flavoring and dates. Mix well and bake in individual dishes in a moderate oven until firm. Decorate with marshmallows and serve with cream or custard sauce.
A date-and-nut torte in the American style, so lean on flour that it is really a bound confection rather than a cake. The ingredient list is incomplete, which is the first thing to settle.
- The missing eggsThe method calls for eggs but the list never gives a number. Recipes of this type, with 1 cup sugar and a tablespoon of flour, generally take two or three whole eggs; three will give a lighter result, two a denser, sweeter one.
- Moderate ovenRead that as 350F. In small ramekins the mixture sets in about 20 to 25 minutes; it is done when the top is dry and the centre no longer wobbles.
- Beating timeFive minutes of beating is not padding. With almost no flour, the aeration from the eggs and sugar is the only structure the pudding has, so beat until pale and thick with a stand mixer or hand beater.
- Individual dishesButtered custard cups or 6 oz ramekins, filled about two-thirds. Set them on a baking sheet for even heat and easy handling. The quantities should give roughly six servings, depending on the size of the dishes.
- DatesUse whole pitted dates and chop them yourself; the pre-chopped sugar-dusted kind clump and skew the sweetness. The recipe mixes the tablespoon of flour with the baking powder, so separate the sticky pieces by hand as you add them.
- Lemon extractA teaspoon of extract in a small batter is assertive by modern taste. Half a teaspoon, or the grated zest of one lemon, sits better with the dates.
- MarshmallowsAdd them in the last two or three minutes of baking, or briefly under a broiler, so they slump and brown rather than dissolve.
- SauceLightly whipped unsweetened cream is the better partner, since the pudding itself carries a full cup of sugar plus dates. A thin pouring custard works if you want it warm.
"Dainty" was a common early twentieth-century title for a small, sweet, individually served dessert, and this one belongs to a whole family of nearly flourless date-and-walnut confections that circulated in American community and loose-leaf cookbooks from roughly the 1890s onward, often under names like date torte or date pudding. Its structure reflects two things that were readily available in the home kitchen: chemical baking powder, long since cheap and widely sold, which let a cook raise a batter with a tablespoon of flour and nothing else, and imported dried dates, which arrived in pressed blocks and were marketed hard as a wholesome sweetener. Commercial marshmallows, sold by the pound from confectioners' jars, were the fashionable garnish of the same decades and turn up scattered over everything from fruit salads to sweet potatoes. Loose-leaf books like Mrs. Fryer's were sold as binders so a household could interleave clippings and its own cards.