Name: Date Pudding
Ingredients: 1 cup bread crumbs; ½ cup walnuts, chopped; 1 cup sugar; 3 eggs; ½ cup dates, chopped; 2 teaspoons baking powder

Why it works: Walnut and dates work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 302 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Date Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make and bake

In a bowl, mix the bread crumbs, chopped walnuts, sugar, eggs, chopped dates, and baking powder until well combined.
Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake for 20 minutes.

Serve

Serve cold with cream or whipped cream.

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.

Walnut + datestop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together302 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Bread + datestop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together100 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Bread + walnuttop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together714 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Sugar + datestop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together985 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Bind the mixture and help give the pudding its set structure as it bakes.
Bread crumbs: Provide the bulk and soft body that holds the pudding together.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the pudding brown lightly as it bakes.
Baking powder: Releases gas during baking to lift and lighten the pudding.
Dates: Add moisture and natural sweetness, becoming soft and chewy in the bake.
Walnuts: Add texture and a toasty, nutty flavour against the soft crumb.