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Dessert

Date Cake

A simple cake made with sugar, baking powder, dates, salt, and walnuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Date Cake

Why it works: Dates and walnut work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 302 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Date Cake

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.

Prepare

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

Mix and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix together the sugar, baking powder, chopped dates, salt, and chopped walnuts.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish.

  3. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes until set.

Serve

  1. Cut into squares and serve with cream.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Sugar + datestop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together985 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Sugar + walnuttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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 a soft, moist chewy texture to the cake.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cake brown while baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and sets lighter.
English walnuts
Add crunch and a nutty flavor that contrasts with the soft dates.

The step that matters

Baking until set. Underbaking leaves the center wet and loose, while overbaking dries the cake. Checking for a set center within the given time helps the cake hold its shape and stay moist.

Swap the walnut

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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