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Dessert

Date Torte

A dense cake made with dates, eggs, sugar, chocolate, spices, and cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Date Torte

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Rub the dates to a smooth paste with wine, brandy, or lemon juice.

  2. Beat 2 whole eggs and 7 yolks together, then add sugar and beat again.

  3. Add the date paste, chocolate, spices, and cracker crumbs, and stir well.

  4. Fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. Bake in a greased springform pan for 40 minutes.

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.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Dates + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together283 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Chocolate + cinnamontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,808 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Dates + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together150 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Eggs
Whites trapped by folding give the torte its light, airy structure as it bakes.
Dates
Provide sweetness, moisture and a dense, chewy texture in the torte.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb moisture and add body, giving the torte a tender, cake-like crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps the egg mixture hold its volume.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air beaten into the whites; stirring or deflating them makes the torte dense instead of light.

Swap the dates

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, chocolate, cinnamon, clove, wine):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, chocolate, cinnamon, clove, wine. 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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