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Dessert

Date Cake

A layered cake made with eggs, sugar, flour, baking powder, dates, walnuts, and vanilla, topped with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Date Cake

Why it works: Dates and vanilla work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 218 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. 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).

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg yolks and sugar together.

  2. Sift together the flour and baking powder, then mix in the nuts, dates, and vanilla.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

  4. Pour the batter into two layer cake pans.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake until golden and a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. Let cool, then add whipped cream filling between the layers.

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. Dates + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together218 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Dates + walnuttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together302 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Walnut + vanillatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,730 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Provide structure and lift, with the whites trapped air that helps the cake rise and set.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps the eggs hold a stable, tender crumb.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, making the cake rise and become light.
Dates
Add moisture and natural sweetness to the batter.
Walnuts
Add texture and a toasty, nutty flavour against the soft crumb.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites gently. Beaten whites hold air bubbles that give the cake its lift. Stirring vigorously deflates them, so the batter bakes up dense and flat.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, flour, dates, vanilla):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Brazil nutfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, flour, dates, vanilla. 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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