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Dates Stuffed
Remove the stones and fill the dates with chopped almonds or peanuts; then close and roll them in powdered sugar.
A two-line confection that still works exactly as written; the only things worth saying concern the dates themselves and what "powdered sugar" meant in 1911.
- Powdered sugarIn this period the term usually meant sugar ground finer than granulated but not the cornstarch-cut confectioners' sugar sold today. Either works for rolling; modern confectioners' sugar clings better and tastes less gritty.
- Choosing datesMedjool dates are large and soft enough to open, stuff and reclose with a pinch. Deglet Noor are drier and firmer, and benefit from a few minutes steamed over hot water or a brief soak before pitting.
- Slit, do not halveCut lengthwise along one side only, deep enough to lift out the stone. A date cut fully in two will not close around the filling and the sugar coating will not hide the seam.
- The nutsChopped, not ground. Toasting almonds or peanuts first for 8-10 minutes at 350F is worth the effort, since the date supplies all the sweetness and the nut has to supply everything else.
- Sugar timingRoll close to serving. Dates are moist enough that the coating tends to dissolve into a syrupy film fairly quickly; a little cornstarch mixed into the sugar slows this.
- YieldThe original gives none. Count per pound depends heavily on variety: large Medjools run to roughly 15-18 to the pound, small dry dates such as Deglet Noor to 40 or more. Reckon on something under a teaspoon of chopped nuts per date.
Stuffed dates belong to a family of "uncooked candies" that filled the confectionery chapters of American cookbooks around the turn of the twentieth century, alongside stuffed prunes, fondant-dipped fruit and salted nuts. They owed their popularity to the grocery trade rather than to the kitchen: by the 1890s dates were arriving in the United States in commercial quantity from North Africa and the Persian Gulf, and California's own date plantings in the Coachella Valley were just beginning. A candy that needed no thermometer, no sugar boiling and no fire suited both the amateur and, one imagines, the church-fair sale table.