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Dessert

Date Cake

A sweet cake made with dates, almonds, citron, chocolate, spices, and soda crackers.

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

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Date Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA fairly hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a fairly hot 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. Beat together the egg yolks and powdered sugar in a large bowl.

  2. Add the chopped almonds, chopped citron, melted German sweet chocolate, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, and dates.

  3. Mix in the finely rolled soda crackers.

  4. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased cake pan and bake for 1 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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Cinnamon + datestop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together283 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Add richness and fat, and help bind the batter together.
Egg whites
Beaten and folded in to lighten the batter and give it an airy structure as it bakes.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and blends smoothly with the egg yolks.
Almonds
Add bulk, nutty flavor, and a firm texture to the cake.
Soda crackers
Rolled fine, they add body and help hold the crumb together.
Dates
Add chewy texture and natural sweetness to the cake.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites gently. Beaten egg whites hold air that gives lift. Stirring them vigorously deflates the foam, leaving a denser cake with less rise.

Swap the dates

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, almond, chocolate, cinnamon, clove, allspice):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, almond, chocolate, cinnamon, clove, allspice. 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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