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Dessert

Food for the Gods

A sweet walnut and date cake baked with eggs, sugar, crackers, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Food for the Gods

Why it works: Walnut and dates 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 ↓

Food for the Gods

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).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the chopped walnuts, chopped dates, granulated sugar, and beaten egg yolks.

  2. In another bowl, mix the rolled crackers with baking powder.

  3. Fold the cracker mixture into the walnut and date mixture.

  4. Incorporate the beaten egg whites gently.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking dish.

  2. Bake for 1.5 hours or until set.

  3. Serve with whipped 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. Walnut + datestop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together302 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Dates + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together985 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Dates + eggtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Walnut + eggtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,037 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

English walnuts
Add crunch and structure, giving the cake a chewy, nutty body.
Dates
Add sweetness and moisture, keeping the cake dense and chewy.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the crumb tender and moist.
Eggs
Yolks bind the batter, and whipped whites add lift and a lighter texture.
Rolled crackers
Add body and help bind the batter with the nuts and dates.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking to help the cake rise.

The step that matters

Incorporate the beaten egg whites gently. Beaten whites trap air that gives lift. Stirring or folding too vigorously deflates the foam, so the cake bakes up dense instead of light.

Swap the walnut

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

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

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