Skip to main content
Bread

Date Bread

A sweet bread made with dates, molasses, and whole wheat flour, baked at 300°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Date Bread

Why it works: Potato and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 235 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Date Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the sponge

  1. In the evening, mix lukewarm water, white flour, potato yeast, and salt in a bowl to create a sponge.

  2. Cover and let it rise in a warm place overnight.

Make the dough

  1. In the morning, add molasses, sugar, and whole wheat flour to the sponge.

  2. For each loaf, stir in a pint of prepared dates.

  3. Let the dough rise again.

Bake and cool

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C) and bake the loaves, increasing the temperature towards the end.

  2. Bake for about 45 minutes until the loaves are rich brown and moist.

  3. Allow the loaves to cool for at least 12 hours before slicing.

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. Potato + wheattop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together235 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + wheattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Wheat + datestop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together69 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

White flour
Provides the gluten structure that traps gas and holds the loaf together.
Potato yeast
Ferments the sponge, producing gas that makes the bread rise.
Whole wheat flour
Adds body and a nutty flavour, and its bran makes the crumb denser.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour, and a rich, slightly bitter sweetness.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning during baking.
Prepared dates
Add moisture, natural sweetness, and soft pockets throughout the loaf.

The step that matters

Cooling before slicing. The crumb keeps setting and absorbing moisture as it cools; cutting too early gives a gummy, crushed texture, so the loaves should rest at least 12 hours.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, molasses, sugar, wheat, dates):

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, molasses, sugar, wheat, dates. 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.

You might also like

Potato BreadPotato Bread124 recipesWheat BreadWheat Bread65 recipesWhole Wheat BreadWhole Wheat Bread55 recipesBarley Wheat BreadBarley Wheat Bread6 recipes