Why it works: Dates and walnut work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 302 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Date Tort
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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make and bake the cake
In a bowl, combine chopped dates, chopped walnuts, sugar, flour, baking soda, and eggs.
Mix until well combined and pour the batter into a biscuit pan.
Bake in the preheated oven until set.
Finish and serve
Once out of the oven, pour hot milk over the cake.
Serve hot with whipped cream.
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.
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Dates + walnuttop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together302 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Walnut + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,873 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Dates
- Add moisture and natural sweetness to the batter.
- Walnuts
- Add texture and a slight crunch to the cake.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake together.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and help it set as it bakes.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the batter to help it rise.
- Hot milk
- Poured over the cake after baking to add moisture.
The step that matters
Pouring the hot milk over the cake. Pouring the hot milk over the cake right after it leaves the oven lets the warm, porous crumb absorb the liquid evenly, keeping the cake moist rather than soggy on top.
Swap the dates
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (walnut, sugar, flour, egg, milk, cream):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Datesthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, sugar, flour, egg, milk, 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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