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Baking

Date Cake

A moist cake made with butter, brown sugar, eggs, milk, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking powder, and chopped dates.

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

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. 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.

Make the batter

  1. In a mixing bowl, combine the butter and brown sugar.

  2. Add the eggs and milk, and mix well.

  3. Stir in the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, and baking powder until combined.

  4. Fold in the chopped dates.

  5. Pour the batter into a buttered cake pan.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 40 minutes.

  2. Once baked, sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + datestop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together283 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

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

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 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

Butter
Creams with sugar to give the cake a tender, rich crumb and flavor.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
Flour
Forms the cake's main structure as its proteins set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Dates
Add moisture and natural sweetness, keeping the cake soft.

The step that matters

Preheat the oven before baking. Baking powder starts releasing gas as soon as it is mixed with the wet ingredients. If the oven is not yet hot, the batter sits and loses lift before the structure sets, which can make the cake dense.

Swap the dates

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

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

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