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Dessert

Date Cake

A sweet cake made with dates, chocolate, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Date Cake

Why it works: Allspice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Date Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the sugar and egg yolks together until well combined.

  2. Add the chopped dates, grated chocolate, allspice, and cinnamon.

  3. Crush the soda crackers into a fine powder and mix with baking powder.

  4. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites gently.

Bake and ice

  1. Pour the mixture into a springform pan and bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C).

  2. Once baked, cover the cake with chocolate icing.

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. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Lemon + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,083 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  4. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whites beaten stiff add lift and a light structure.
Dates
Chopped dates add sweetness and a moist, chewy texture.
Chocolate
Adds rich flavor and a deep, chocolatey character to the batter.
Soda crackers
Crushed crackers act as a dry crumb that gives the batter body.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter to help the cake rise.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and blends quickly into the egg yolks.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites gently. Beaten whites trap air that makes the cake light. Vigorous stirring deflates them, leaving a dense, heavy cake instead of a tender one.

Swap the dates

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, chocolate, egg, lemon, allspice, cinnamon. 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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