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Dessert

Date Pudding

A baked pudding made with dates, suet, flour, milk, sugar, ginger, cinnamon, eggs, bread crumbs, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Date Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Run dates and suet together through a meat grinder.

Make and bake

  1. Mix all the ingredients, adding the beaten eggs last.

  2. Turn into a well buttered baking dish or mould and bake for two hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with a hard sauce.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

805Calories
28 gProtein
14 gFat
141 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Date1 date (24g) medjool66
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Cinnamon1 tsp ground (2.6g)6
Ginger1 tsp grated fresh (2g)2
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

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. See the original page.

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. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Dates + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together283 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 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
Bind the mixture and help it set as it bakes.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich.
Dates
Provide sweetness, moisture and body to the pudding.
Soft bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and add tenderness to the crumb.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (dates, sugar, milk, flour, cinnamon, bread, egg):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against dates, sugar, milk, flour, cinnamon, bread, egg. 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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