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Dessert

Date Loaf

A candy-like loaf of sugar, milk, butter, dates and nuts, boiled, beaten, shaped in a cloth and sliced when cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Date Loaf

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Date Loaf

Ingredients

Directions

Make the candy

  1. Boil sugar and milk together until it reaches the soft ball stage.

  2. Do not stir once boiling begins.

  3. Add butter and stoned, chopped dates.

  4. Let it boil once or twice.

Beat and shape

  1. Remove from heat and beat until stiff and creamy.

  2. Add nuts and continue beating until the mixture is stiff enough to stand.

  3. Place the mixture in a clean cloth wrung in cold water and roll into a loaf.

Slice

  1. Once cold, cut into slices.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + datestop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Meat + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,703 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Provides sweetness and, when boiled to soft ball stage, the firm body of the loaf.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softness to the boiled mixture.
Dates
Add sweetness, moisture and chewy body to the loaf.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, tender texture.
Nut meats
Add texture and bite to the stiffened mixture.

The step that matters

Do not stir once boiling begins.. Stirring a boiling sugar syrup can encourage sugar crystals to form, which leads to a grainy rather than smooth, creamy texture.

Swap the dates

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, meat, milk, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, meat, milk, butter. 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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