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Dessert

Date Pudding

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and dates work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 283 recipes. Both carry anethole, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

Date Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Beat the sugar and egg yolks together.

  2. Stir in the suet, bread crumbs, cinnamon, and dates.

  3. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  4. Steam for 2 hours until set.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, beat the egg yolks with enough powdered sugar to thicken.

  2. Fold in the beaten egg whites until frothy.

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. Cinnamon + datestop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together283 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Bread + datestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together100 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

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

  5. Bread + cinnamontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,705 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

Suet
Fat that melts during steaming, keeping the pudding moist and tender.
Bread crumbs
Provide bulk and structure, soaking up moisture as the pudding sets.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set, while whipped whites add lightness to the sauce.
Dates
Add sweetness and moisture to the pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps soften the texture of the pudding.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, spiced aroma to the pudding.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites trap air when beaten, and folding them in gently keeps that air in the mixture so the sauce stays light rather than deflating.

“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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