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Dessert

Date Pudding

A steamed pudding made with molasses, suet, milk, flour, dates, spices, and eggs, served with a sweet sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

Make the batter

  1. Dissolve the baking soda in a little hot water and mix it with the milk.

  2. Combine the milk mixture with the molasses, suet, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, and chopped dates.

  3. Add the well-beaten eggs and mix thoroughly.

Steam

  1. Steam for 2 hours.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, combine 1 cup powdered sugar, butter the size of an egg, and ½ cup cream in a kettle of hot water.

  2. Heat until it reaches a boiling point, then flavor with brandy or wine.

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

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and deep color and flavor to the pudding.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender while it steams.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during steaming.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Dates
Add sweetness and moisture to the pudding.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda fully before mixing it with the milk. Baking soda needs to be completely dissolved and evenly distributed to react with the acidic molasses and lift the batter. Undissolved clumps can leave bitter, soapy patches and uneven rising.

Swap the dates

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

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

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