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Dessert

Date Cake

A moist cake made with dates, sugar, butter, milk, eggs, flour, and a sweet icing.

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

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Date Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the cake

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together ½ cup butter and 2 ½ cups sugar.

  3. Add the egg yolks and mix well.

  4. Stir in 1 cup milk and mix until combined.

  5. In another bowl, combine 2 ½ cups flour and 2 teaspoons baking powder.

  6. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until smooth.

  7. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  8. Gently fold the egg whites into the batter.

  9. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Make the filling and finish

  1. For the filling, boil 2 cups sugar and 6 tablespoons water until it reaches a syrup consistency.

  2. Remove from heat and let cool slightly, then stir in the 2 egg whites.

  3. Add the chopped dates and 1 tablespoon lemon juice to the icing and mix well.

  4. Spread the filling over the cooled cake.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Whipped whites give the cake lift, while yolks add richness and structure to the batter.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and become light.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds tenderness and richness to the crumb.
Dates
Add moisture and natural sweetness to the filling.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped whites hold air that gives the cake its lift. Stirring them in vigorously knocks that air out, so fold gently with a spatula until just blended.

Swap the dates

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

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

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