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Dessert

Date Oaxe

A moist cake made with dates, sugar, butter, milk, flour, cloves, nutmeg, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Date Oaxe

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the milk and eggs, mixing well.

  3. In another bowl, combine the flour, cloves, cream of tartar, baking soda, and grated nutmeg.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until just combined.

  5. Fold in the chopped dates.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan and bake for about 30-40 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  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. Flour + nutmegtop 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

Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its starch sets during baking.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and carries flavour through the batter.
Dates
Add natural sweetness and moisture, staying soft throughout the cake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to produce gas that helps the cake rise.

The step that matters

Stirring the dry ingredients into the wet mixture. Once flour meets liquid, gluten begins to form. Stirring only until just combined keeps the crumb tender, while overmixing makes the cake tough and dense.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

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