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Dessert

Date Cake

A sweet baked cake made with dates, sugar, butter, eggs, milk, flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, lemon extract, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Date Cake

Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. 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, beat together the sugar and butter until creamy.

  2. Add the beaten eggs, lemon extract, and nutmeg; mix well.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in the sweet milk and add to the mixture.

  4. Sift the flour with the cream of tartar and gently fold it into the batter.

  5. Stir in the prepared dates.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a shallow pan and bake until golden.

  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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic ingredients to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set in the oven.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter and works with the baking soda to help the cake rise.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and helps create a creamy base with the sugar.
Prepared dates
Add sweetness, moisture, and a soft, chewy texture to the cake.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in the sweet milk. Baking soda needs to be fully dissolved and mixed in evenly so it reacts with the acid in the batter and rises uniformly. Clumps can leave bitter spots and uneven holes.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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