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Date Drop Cakes

A quick date and nut cake baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 Drop Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Grind the dates or chop them very fine.

  2. Mix the nut meal with the dates.

  3. Add the vanilla, salt, and well-beaten eggs.

  4. Lastly, add the flour and mix well.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls onto oiled baking sheets.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 10 to 15 minutes.

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.

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. Nuts + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together638 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Nuts + wheattop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together57 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Vanilla + wheattop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together496 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Dates
Provide sweetness and moisture, giving the cakes their soft, chewy body.
Nut meal
Forms the bulk of the batter and adds richness and a nutty flavor.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help set the structure as the cakes bake.
Whole-wheat flour
Adds starch for structure and a slightly earthy, hearty flavor.

The step that matters

Baking the drops. Baking for too long dries out the cookies because the small amount of batter has little moisture to spare. Watching the time within the stated range keeps them tender and moist.

Swap the dates

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Datesthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against nuts, egg, vanilla, wheat, flour. 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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