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Dessert

Date Bread

A sweet bread made with dates, walnuts, molasses, and graham flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Date Bread

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Date Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the sugar with the butter until smooth.

  2. Add the beaten egg and sour milk, mixing well.

  3. Stir in the baking soda, graham flour, white flour, and baking powder.

  4. Fold in the molasses, chopped dates, and walnuts.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a drip pan.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for about one hour.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Dates + walnuttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together302 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Sour milk
Reacts with the baking soda to lift the batter and adds tang.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that makes the bread rise.
Graham flour
Provides structure and a nutty, coarse texture.
White flour
Builds the gluten structure that holds the loaf together.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the crumb.
Dates
Add moisture and natural sweetness as they soften during baking.

The step that matters

Folding in the molasses, dates, and walnuts. Overmixing after the flour is added develops gluten and toughens the bread. Fold gently, just until evenly combined, so the crumb stays tender.

Swap the walnut

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, milk, flour, molasses, dates. 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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