Skip to main content
Dessert

Date Pudding

A simple pudding made with flour, dates, milk, baking powder, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Date Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour, salt, baking powder, and chopped dates.

  2. Gradually add the milk and stir until combined.

  3. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil for 1½ hours.

  2. Serve warm with a nice sauce.

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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Dates + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Flour + datestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Flour
Forms the batter's structure, setting as it cooks into a firm, sliceable pudding.
Baking powder
Releases gas as it heats, helping the pudding rise and turn light.
Dates
Add natural sweetness and moisture, giving the pudding its soft, rich body.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and binds the batter, adding moisture and softness.

The step that matters

Keep the pudding mold sealed while boiling. Boiling is a moist-heat method, so the mold must stay closed and the water level steady. If water enters, the pudding becomes soggy and heavy; the steam is what cooks and lifts the batter.

Swap the dates

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk. 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 →

You might also like

Stuffed DatesStuffed Dates32 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes