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Dessert

Date Cake

A sweet cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, milk, lemon, flour, dates, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Date Cake

Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Date Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.

  3. Add the eggs and milk, then mix in the lemon extract and mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and nutmeg.

Mix and bake

  1. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture.

  2. Prepare the dates as directed in the introduction to this chapter and stir them in last.

  3. Pour the batter into a shallow pan.

  4. Bake until golden and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

  5. Cut into squares to serve.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to add richness and a tender crumb.
Eggs
Provide structure and help bind the batter.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake.
Cream of tartar
Acidic powder that reacts with baking soda to help the cake rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to produce lift and rising.
Dates
Add sweetness, moisture, and chewy texture.

The step that matters

Stirring the dry ingredients into the wet mixture. Overmixing once flour is added develops gluten and can make the cake tough. Mix only until the flour is just combined so the crumb stays tender.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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