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Dessert

Date Cake

A moist cake made with dates, walnuts, and vanilla, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

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 batter

  1. Cream together the brown sugar and butter until smooth.

  2. Add the eggs and warm water, mixing well.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking soda.

  4. Gradually add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients, stirring until combined.

  5. Fold in the chopped dates, walnuts, and vanilla extract.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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

Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and contributes to a soft, tender crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture when creamed with sugar.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
Flour
Provides the main structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Dates
Add moisture and natural sweetness, keeping the cake soft.

The step that matters

Gradually add the flour mixture. Adding flour slowly and stirring only until combined keeps gluten development limited, so the cake stays tender rather than tough.

Swap the dates

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, flour, walnut, 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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