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Dessert

Date Pudding

A steamed pudding made with molasses, milk, butter, flour, spices, and chopped dates.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Date Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix molasses, milk, and melted butter in a large bowl.

  2. Add flour, baking soda, cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, and salt; stir until combined.

  3. Fold in the chopped dates.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam for 2½ hours.

  3. Serve with wine 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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  5. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture, and a deep sweet flavor to the pudding.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to lighten the batter and help it rise.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, moist crumb.
Dates
Add chewy texture and natural sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Steam for 2½ hours. Steaming gently and steadily cooks the batter through without drying it. If the water boils dry or the steam drops, the pudding can turn out dense or undercooked in the center.

Swap the dates

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, milk, butter, flour, clove, nutmeg, cinnamon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, milk, butter, flour, clove, nutmeg, cinnamon. 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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