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Dessert

Date Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, bread crumbs, dates, sugar, eggs, spices, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg 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

Prepare the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the suet, bread crumbs, dates, sugar, eggs, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and baking powder.

  2. Add enough water to create a thick batter.

Steam

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Cover the mold and steam for 3 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Dates + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together283 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding its soft, body-filled texture.
Dates
Add natural sweetness and a moist, chewy texture.
Eggs
Bind the ingredients together and add structure as they set.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lifts the batter so the pudding is lighter.

The step that matters

Add enough water to create a thick batter. The batter must be thick enough to hold its shape in the mold; if it is too thin, the pudding can turn dense, soggy, or fall apart during steaming.

Swap the dates

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, egg, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove. 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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