Skip to main content
Dessert

Date Rolls

A sweet roll made with dates, flour, butter, eggs, sugar, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Dates and cinnamon work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 283 recipes. Both carry anethole, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

Date Rolls

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Rub the butter into the flour.

  3. Add the baking powder, salt, and cinnamon.

  4. Beat the eggs until frothy and mix with the dry ingredients to form a stiff paste.

Shape and cut

  1. Turn the mixture out onto a board and form it into a roll.

  2. Cut the roll into equal parts and place on a greased and floured baking tray.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in the preheated oven until nearly done.

  2. Brush the rolls with hot water and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.

  3. Return to the oven to dry.

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 + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together283 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

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

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

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Flour
Forms the structure of the paste that holds the rolls together.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and enriches the flavour.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and moisture to the paste.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven, helping the rolls rise and lighten.
Dates or sultanas
Add sweetness and moisture to the filling of the rolls.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the sprinkled topping brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Forming the stiff paste. A paste that is too wet will spread and lose its shape in the oven, while one that is too dry will crumble. Beating the eggs until frothy and mixing them in gently keeps the texture even and the rolls cohesive.

Swap the dates

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

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

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

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipesStuffed DatesStuffed Dates32 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipes