Skip to main content
Dessert

Date Loaf

A sweet loaf made with dates, walnuts, sugar, flour, eggs, vanilla, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Date Loaf

Why it works: Dates and vanilla 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 Loaf

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

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the dates, walnuts, sugar, flour, and salt.

  2. In another bowl, beat the eggs and then fold them into the dry mixture.

  3. Add the vanilla extract and baking powder, mixing until just combined.

  4. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan.

Bake

  1. Bake for 90 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center 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.

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. Dates + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together218 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Dates + walnuttop 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. Walnut + vanillatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,730 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Walnut + flourtop 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

Dates
Provide sweetness, moisture and bulk to the loaf.
Eggs
Bind the batter and give the loaf its structure as they set.
Flour
Forms the gluten and starch framework that gives the loaf its body.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the loaf rises and becomes lighter.
Walnuts
Add texture and a slight crunch against the soft crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the loaf and helps it brown and stay moist.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs to the dry mixture. Eggs are beaten separately and folded in gently so the batter keeps air and stays light. Overmixing after adding them can deflate the batter and make the loaf dense.

Swap the walnut

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

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

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

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesStuffed DatesStuffed Dates32 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipes