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Dessert

Date Cake

A sweet cake made with dates, sugar, flour, eggs, butter, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Date Cake

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Date Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the sugar, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

  2. Add the beaten eggs, butter, sweet milk, and lemon extract; mix well.

  3. Gradually stir in the flour, nutmeg, and prepared dates.

  4. Pour the batter into a shallow pan.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until golden and a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. Cut into squares to serve.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Cream of tartar
Acts with the baking soda to help the cake rise and gives a light, tender crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness, richness and moistness in the crumb.
Prepared dates
Contribute natural sweetness, moisture and a chewy texture.

The step that matters

Gradually stir in the flour. Overmixing once flour is added develops gluten, which can make the cake tough and dense. Stir just until the flour is combined so the crumb stays tender.

Swap the dates

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, cream, lemon, butter, milk, flour):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Datesthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, cream, lemon, butter, milk, flour. 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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