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Dessert

Date Pudding

A pudding made from dates, water, graham meal, and optional sugar, served with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Date Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the seeds from the dates.

Cook

  1. Boil the dates in water for 30 minutes.

  2. Thicken the mixture with graham meal and cook until done.

  3. Add sugar to taste if desired.

Cool and serve

  1. Pour into cups to cool.

  2. Serve with whipped cream.

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

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

  2. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Dates + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together985 recipes

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

  5. Dates + creamtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together276 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Dates
Provide the main body, sweetness and flavour of the pudding as they soften in water.
Graham meal
Thickens the cooked date mixture so it sets into a spoonable pudding.
Whipped cream
Adds richness and a cool, light contrast to the warm-sweet date pudding.

The step that matters

Thicken the mixture with graham meal and cook until done. Graham meal absorbs liquid and swells as it heats, so it must be cooked long enough to fully thicken and lose its raw floury taste. Stopping early leaves the pudding thin or gritty.

Swap the dates

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cream, sauce):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, sauce. 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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