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Dessert

Date Cake

A sweet cake made with eggs, powdered sugar, dates, spices, chocolate, soda crackers, and vanilla, topped with chocolate icing.

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

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

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

  2. Separate the eggs, beating the yolks and whites in separate bowls.

Make the batter

  1. Mix in the powdered sugar with the yolks until well combined.

  2. Fold in the finely chopped dates, allspice, cinnamon, grated chocolate, and crushed soda crackers.

  3. Add a splash of vanilla extract to the mixture.

  4. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites until just combined.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the batter into a springform pan and bake slowly until set.

  2. Once cooled, 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. Cinnamon + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  3. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whipped whites and yolks provide the airy structure and set the cake's body.
Dates
Add moisture and natural sweetness to the batter.
Soda crackers
Crumbs add bulk and help give the cake its body without flour.
Chocolate
Grated chocolate adds rich flavor and depth to the batter.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and dissolves smoothly into the egg yolks.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Egg whites hold air from beating, which gives the cake its lift. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring hard deflates the batter and leaves a dense cake.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Allspicethe original

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

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