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Dessert

Date or Fig Cake

A sweet cake made with sugar, butter, eggs, syrup, flour, buttermilk, baking soda, chocolate, and nuts or figs or dates.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Syrup and buttermilk match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Date or Fig Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure. The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Add the eggs and syrup, mixing well.

  3. Stir in the flour, buttermilk, baking soda, and chocolate until combined.

  4. Fold in the nuts, figs, or dates.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the batter onto a buttered baking sheet.

  2. Bake for about 20-25 minutes or until golden.

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.

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. Syrup + buttermilktop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together124 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Chocolate + nutstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together440 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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 as they set in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk and syrup to help the cakes rise.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and acidity that activates the baking soda.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and rich flavor.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cakes together.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps it brown as it bakes.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, syrup, flour, buttermilk, chocolate):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Hazelnutfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, syrup, flour, buttermilk, chocolate. 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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