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Dessert

Date Cake

A moist cake made with dates, butter, sugar, sour milk, baking soda, spices, and flour.

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

Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Date Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA medium oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a medium 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. In a bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Mix in the sour milk and baking soda.

  3. Add the ground cloves and nutmeg.

  4. Gradually stir in the flour until combined.

  5. Flour the chopped dates and fold them into the batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

  2. Bake for 1 hour 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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Dates + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together150 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Dates
Provide chewy texture and natural sweetness throughout the crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich flavour in the crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps browning and a moist texture.
Sour milk
Supplies moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk's acidity to produce gas that lifts the batter.
All-purpose flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.

The step that matters

Gradually stir in the flour until combined. Overmixing once flour is added develops gluten, which can make the cake tough and dense. Stir just until no dry flour remains.

Swap the dates

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

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

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