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Baking

Date Cake

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

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 the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, beat together the sugar and butter until creamy.

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

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

  5. Sift the flour and cream of tartar together, then gradually add to the batter.

  6. Gently fold 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 in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that helps it rise.
Cream of tartar
Provides acidity that works with the baking soda to lighten the crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the crumb.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Prepared dates
Add moisture and natural sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda and folding in the dry ingredients. Baking soda needs acid from the batter to release its gas, so it should be fully dissolved and mixed in promptly. Overmixing after adding the flour can toughen the crumb by developing gluten, so fold gently.

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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