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Dessert

Date Pudding

A steamed pudding made with dates, suet, sugar, bread crumbs, nutmeg, salt, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Dates and bread work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 100 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Date Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the dates and suet until very fine.

Mix and cook

  1. In a bowl, mix the chopped dates and suet with sugar, bread crumbs, nutmeg, and salt.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and combine well.

  3. Transfer the mixture into a pudding mold.

  4. Boil or steam for 4 hours.

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. Dates + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together100 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Dates + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together194 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Nutmeg + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Nutmeg and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Dates
Provide sweetness, moisture and the main flavour of the pudding.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding its body and soft structure.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so it holds together when set by heat.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give a tender, moist crumb.

The step that matters

Keeping the pudding steaming gently for the full time. Long, steady heat cooks the mixture through and sets the eggs and crumbs evenly. Boiling too hard or letting the water level drop can make the pudding uneven or dry at the edges, so the pot needs steady water and a tight seal.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Allspicefits less well
  4. Clovefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against dates, sugar, 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.

More date pudding recipes

Steamed 8 See all 100 →

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