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Bread

Date Bread

A loaf of bread made with dates, walnuts, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder, salt, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Date Bread

Why it works: Vanilla and dates work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 218 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Date Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs thoroughly and cream them with the sugar.

  2. Mix the flour and baking powder, then add to the egg mixture.

  3. Stir in the chopped walnuts, chopped dates, salt, and vanilla.

  4. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan.

Bake

  1. Bake slowly for one hour.

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. Vanilla + datestop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together218 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Walnut + datestop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together302 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Vanilla + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,730 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
Sugar
Creams with the eggs to add sweetness and help build a light texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the loaf rises and becomes lighter.
Flour
Forms the main structure that holds the loaf together as it bakes.
Dates
Add moisture and natural sweetness to the finished loaf.

The step that matters

Bake slowly for one hour. Baking at a low, steady temperature lets the eggs and flour set through the center before the outside browns too much. Rushing with a hotter oven can leave a dense, underbaked middle or a dry crust.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, flour, vanilla, dates):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Brazil nutfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, flour, vanilla, dates. 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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