Skip to main content
Dessert

Date Cake

A moist cake made with dates, molasses, brown sugar, butter, cider, spices, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Date Cake

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Date Cake

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the brown sugar and butter.

  2. Add the molasses and cider, mixing well.

  3. Beat in the eggs one at a time.

  4. Stir in the cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and baking soda.

  5. Fold in the chopped dates.

  6. Gradually add flour until the batter is stiff.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for about 45 minutes or until a toothpick 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown as it bakes.
Butter
Creamed with the sugar, it traps air and adds tenderness and richness.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets in the oven.
Molasses
Adds deep sweetness, moisture, and a dark color to the cake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cider and molasses to produce gas that lifts the cake.
Dates
Add chewy texture and natural sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until the batter is stiff. Adding flour slowly lets you judge the batter's consistency. Too much flour makes the cake dense and dry, since flour starch sets with the heat and absorbs the liquid.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, molasses, butter, cider, egg, cinnamon, nutmeg):

  1. Allspicefits about as well
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Cardamomfits less well
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, molasses, butter, cider, egg, cinnamon, nutmeg. 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

Molasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesClove CakeClove Cake53 recipes