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Dessert

Mary's and Marion's Date Cake

A sweet cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, flour, dates, baking soda, cream of tartar, and sweet milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Mary's and Marion's Date Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and mix well.

  3. Sift the cream of tartar with the flour twice.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in the milk and add to the mixture.

  5. Fold in the chopped dates.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a large cake tin.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for about 1 hour and 15 minutes.

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

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Provide structure and richness, setting the crumb as the cake bakes.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake once it is set by heat.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar and milk to lift the batter as it bakes.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with baking soda to produce rising gas.
Dates
Add moisture and natural sweetness to the finished cake.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in the milk and add to the mixture.. Baking soda needs an acid to release gas efficiently. If it is not fully dissolved and evenly mixed, pockets of unreacted soda can cause bitter spots and uneven rising.

Swap the dates

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, butter, egg, milk, 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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