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Dessert

Nut and Date Pudding

A baked pudding made with pecans, dates, bread crumbs, powdered sugar, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pecans and dates share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Nut and Date Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Chop the pecans and dates into small pieces.

  2. Mix the chopped nuts and dates with the bread crumbs and powdered sugar.

Make the batter

  1. Add the yolks of the eggs and beat until light.

  2. Fold in the beaten egg whites.

  3. Pour the mixture into a buttered pudding dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 15 minutes.

  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. Pecans + datestop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together88 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

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

  4. Pecans + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together67 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Pecans + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,280 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Pecans
Add crunchy texture and a rich, toasty nutty flavour to the pudding.
Dates
Provide natural sweetness and moisture that keeps the pudding tender.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the pudding body so it holds together.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the pudding and dissolves easily into the mixture.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the pudding; whipped whites add lift and a light texture.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites. Beaten egg whites hold air bubbles that lift the pudding as it bakes. Stirring them in vigorously deflates those bubbles, leaving a denser result, so fold gently with a spatula.

“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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