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Bread

Date Bread

A sweet bread made with dates, walnuts, molasses, and a mix of graham and whole wheat flours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Date Bread

Why it works: Walnut and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 246 recipes. Both carry 1-hexanal, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Date Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped walnuts, chopped dates, sour milk, molasses, graham flour, whole wheat flour, baking soda, and salt. Mix until the batter is stiff.

  2. Divide the batter into 2 medium-sized bread pans.

Bake

  1. Bake for 1.5 hours.

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 + wheattop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together246 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  2. Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Flour + wheattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Walnut + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda so the loaf rises and gains a tender crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to release carbon dioxide, leavening the batter.
Graham flour
Provides the bulk structure of the loaf along with a coarse, nutty texture.
Whole wheat flour
Adds structure and a hearty, slightly nutty flavour and texture to the loaf.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour, moisture and a rich flavour to the bread.
Dates
Add natural sweetness and moisture that keeps the loaf soft.

The step that matters

Mix until the batter is stiff. Mixing develops gluten in the flour, which gives the loaf its structure. Stopping at a stiff batter, without overmixing, keeps the crumb tender while the baking soda leavens it.

Swap the dates

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (walnut, milk, molasses, flour, wheat):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, milk, molasses, flour, wheat. 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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