Name: Date Loaf
Ingredients: 1 cup white flour; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 cup sugar; 4 heaping teaspoons baking powder; 2 lbs stoned dates, cut in half; milk (as needed for consistency)

Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. 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

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make and bake

In a bowl, mix the flour, salt, sugar, and baking powder.
Add the stoned dates and enough milk to achieve a fruit cake-like consistency.
Pour the mixture into a deep baking tin.
Bake for 1½ hours.

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.

Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Dates + milktop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together470 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Flour + datestop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together675 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

White flour: Provides the starch structure that holds the loaf together as it bakes.
Baking powder: Releases gas when heated, helping the loaf rise and become light.
Dates: Add moisture and natural sweetness, giving the loaf its chewy, dense texture.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps browning and a tender crumb.
Milk: Adds moisture and binds the batter to a cake-like consistency.