Background and Objectives: Date syrup is a valuable secondary product of dates. It is full of natural sugar and is useful for diabetics. The objective of this study was to investigate the possibility of producing sponge cake by complete or partial substitution of sucrose with date syrup.

Materials and Methods: Cake batter properties such as specific gravity, cake characteristics such as volume, apparent density, porosity, moisture and water activity, crust color and textural firmness were determined.

Results: The results showed that increasing the concentration of date syrup significantly (p<0.05) reduced specific gravity and viscosity. Complete substitution of sucrose with date syrup gave lower cake volume, apparent and solid densities, porosity and symmetry compared to those of control. Samples prepared with different concentrations of date syrup had moisture and water activity higher than those of control. The highest firmness values were observed in the samples containing higher concentrations of date syrup. The samples prepared with date syrup had darker crust color compared to control.

Conclusion: Sponge cake prepared by 25% date syrup had similar quality characteristics to those of control cake.

Keywords: Sucrose replacement, Sponge cake, Quality, Date syrup