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Dessert

Date Cake

A moist cake made with dates, sugar, butter, eggs, lemon essence, nutmeg, milk, baking soda, flour, and cream of tartar.

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

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.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat together the sugar and butter until creamy.

  2. Add the eggs, lemon essence, and nutmeg; mix well.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in the sweet milk and add to the mixture.

  4. Sift the flour and cream of tartar together, then gradually add to the batter.

  5. Gently fold in the prepared dates.

Bake and cool

  1. Pour the batter into a shallow pan and bake for about 45 minutes or until golden brown.

  2. Let cool for at least 12 hours before cutting into squares.

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. Sugar + creamtop 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness to the crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic components to help the cake rise and brown.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that works with the baking soda to lighten the batter.
Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air and adds tenderness and flavour.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Prepared dates
Add sweetness, moisture and chew throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in the sweet milk. Baking soda needs an acid to react and create gas for rise. Dissolving it fully in the liquid spreads it evenly, so the cake rises without bitter or patchy spots.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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