Why it works: Cinnamon and dates work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 283 recipes. Both carry anethole, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓
Cracker Cake Without Flour
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.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
In a large bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until well combined.
Add the cinnamon, lemon juice, and lemon rind, mixing thoroughly.
Melt the chocolate and stir it into the egg mixture.
Fold in the chopped dates and crushed soda crackers.
Bake
Pour the batter into a greased baking dish.
Bake for about 30-40 minutes or until set.
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.
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Cinnamon + datestop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together283 recipes
Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).
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Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,950 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Cinnamon + chocolatetop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,808 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,404 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
- Eggs
- Beaten with sugar, they provide structure and set the cake as it bakes.
- Soda crackers
- Crushed crackers add body and starch that soak up moisture and give the cake its crumb.
- Dates
- Chopped dates add moisture and natural sweetness throughout the cake.
- Chocolate
- Melted chocolate adds richness, fat and deep flavor to the batter.
- Sugar
- Sugar sweetens the batter and helps the eggs hold air when beaten.
The step that matters
Baking until set. Pulling the cake too early leaves the egg-based batter liquid in the middle, while overbaking dries it out. The eggs set as they heat, so checking for firmness at the shorter end of the time range helps keep the cake moist.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, cinnamon, chocolate, dates):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Pumpkinfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, cinnamon, chocolate, dates. 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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