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Dessert

Date Pudding

A steamed pudding made with shredded suet, dates, egg, golden syrup, and almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Dates and almond work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 217 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Date Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Chop the dates and cut the almonds.

  2. Beat the egg and mix all the ingredients together well.

  3. Pour the mixture into a buttered basin.

Boil

  1. Cover with greased paper and tie down.

  2. Boil fast for two hours, keeping the water an inch below the top of the basin.

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. Dates + almondtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together217 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Syrup + almondtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together746 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Dates + eggtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Dates + syruptop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together49 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Egg + almondtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Shredded suet
Melts during cooking to add richness and a moist, tender texture.
Dates
Add sweetness and moisture as they soften in the pudding.
Egg
Binds the ingredients together and sets as the pudding cooks.
Lyle's golden syrup
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the pudding darken slightly.
Chopped almonds
Add a nutty flavour and some texture to the pudding.

The step that matters

Keep the water an inch below the top of the basin. A steady, fast boil keeps the pudding cooking evenly. If the water rises over the covering, it can seep in and make the pudding soggy, so the level must be checked during the two hours.

Swap the dates

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, syrup, almond):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, syrup, almond. 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.

More date pudding recipes

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