Stuffed Dates in Honey (Apicius)
Reader ratingsStuffed dates in honey, the dulcia domestica of Apicius: dates stoned and filled with walnut, pine nuts or ground pepper, touched with salt and fried in hot honey.
- Recipe makes
- 20 dates, 6 servings
- Prep
- Cook
- Total
Let the dates cool for 15 minutes before eating; the honey is very hot straight from the pan.
Dulcia domestica, dates stuffed with walnut and pine nuts and glazed in honey.
The story behind the recipe
When the wild boar came in at Trimalchio’s dinner, it had two little palm-leaf baskets hanging from its tusks, “one full of nut-shaped dates, and the other full of Theban dates,” as Harry Thurston Peck translated it in 1898. Once the boar was carved, the slaves “distributed the dates among the guests to the accompaniment of music.” Both were imported. Peck’s nut-shaped dates are caryotae in the Latin, which Pliny, writing in the 70s AD, counted among the most esteemed of all, best at Jericho in Judaea. The Theban dates came from the Thebais in Egypt; Pliny says they were packed in casks as soon as they were picked and warmed in an oven before eating.
What are dulcia domestica?
The Roman recipe collection called Apicius, put together long after Petronius wrote, has a short chapter of sweets, and it opens with these: dulcia domestica, home-made sweets. Two words for dates appear in the recipe, palmulae and dactyli. The stones come out, and the dates are filled with walnut, pine nuts or ground pepper, touched with salt on the outside and fried in boiled honey. That is the whole recipe, a later Roman cook’s way with the kind of dates handed round Trimalchio’s table.
Read more about this recipe
Making it today
We fill some dates with walnut and some with pine nuts, and add a little pepper to each. Apicius lists walnut, pine nuts and pepper as three choices; we use all three. Medjool dates are large and soft enough to open without tearing. The honey is “cooked” in the pan until it bubbles; the dates roll in it for a minute or two, until glazed, and come out before the honey darkens.
For a sweet from the same chapter, made with eggs and milk, try Honey Sponge Eggs (Apicius). The thrushes that flew out of the boar, and the pastry piglets around it, are in What Was Actually Served at Trimalchio’s Dinner?
Dulcia domestica: palmulas vel dactylos excepto semine, nuce vel nucleis vel pipere trito infercies. sale foris contingis, frigis in melle cocto, et inferes.
Apicius, De re coquinaria 7.13.1, in the 1922 edition of Cesare Giarratano and Friedrich Vollmer. In our translation: “Home-made sweets: take the stones out of dates, and stuff them with walnut or pine nuts or ground pepper. Touch them with salt on the outside, fry them in cooked honey, and serve.”
Recipe makes: 20 dates, 6 servings
Ingredients
For 20 dates, 6 servings. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for 20 dates, 6 servings.
- Medjool dates20
- Walnut halves5
- Pine nuts20 g
- Freshly ground black pepper1/2 tsp
- Flaky sea salt1/4 tsp
- Honey120 g
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 20 Medjool dates
- 5 walnut halves
- 20 g pine nuts
- 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
- 1/4 tsp flaky sea salt
- 120 g honey
Equipment
- Small sharp knife
Mortar and pestle- Wide frying pan
- Lightly oiled plate or baking parchment
Instructions
Slit each date along one side and take out the stone.
Break the walnut halves in two. Press a piece of walnut into half of the dates and a few pine nuts into the rest. Dust a little pepper into each date before closing it.
Sprinkle the salt over the dates.
Warm the honey in the frying pan over medium heat until it foams and bubbles, about 2 minutes.
Add the dates and turn them in the honey with a spoon for 1 to 2 minutes, until glossy all over. Take the pan off the heat before the honey darkens.
Lift the dates onto the oiled plate and leave them to cool for 15 minutes before serving.
Nutrition
330calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- 20 dates, 6 servings
- Servings
- 6
Estimated per serving from USDA FoodData Central values for Medjool dates, walnuts, pine nuts and honey.
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
One walnut half fills two dates; a pan of this size takes up to 30 dates at once.
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the servings.
Hot honey sticks and burns like sugar syrup, so turn the dates with a spoon, never your fingers. The dates keep a day at room temperature, loosely covered. Contains tree nuts.
Scaling changes the ingredients only; pan sizes and cooking times need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.
Sources and attribution
After Apicius, De re coquinaria, book 7, Dulcia domestica; Latin text ed. Cesare Giarratano and Friedrich Vollmer (Leipzig: Teubner, 1922); our translation
Recipe details
- Course
- Dessert
- Dish family
- Desserts & Sweets
- Era
- Ancient Rome
- Main ingredient
- Fruit
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Occasion
- Dinner party