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Dessert

Date Pudding

A baked dessert made with flour, dates, butter, egg, milk, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

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. Flour the dates and set aside.

  2. Sift together the flour, salt, baking powder, and sugar.

  3. Rub the butter into the dry mixture thoroughly.

  4. Beat the egg until light, then add the milk and mix well.

Make the batter

  1. Pour the egg and milk mixture over the dry ingredients and mix quickly into a batter.

  2. Fold in the floured dates gently.

Bake and serve

  1. Turn the mixture into a baking pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 15 to 20 minutes.

  2. Serve with vanilla 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Milk + datestop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 main structure that holds the pudding together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, making the pudding rise and become light.
Egg
Adds structure and binds the batter as its proteins set during baking.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.
Dates
Add sweetness and moisture, leaving soft pockets throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Mixing the batter quickly. Once the liquid meets the flour, gluten begins to form. Overmixing toughens the batter and makes the pudding dense, so stir only until combined.

Swap the dates

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, egg, 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.

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