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Dessert

Date Pudding

A baked pudding made with dates, nuts, breadcrumbs, egg, butter, sugar, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine the dates, nut meats, and bread crumbs.

  3. In another bowl, beat the egg well and mix in the softened butter and sugar.

  4. Add the milk to the egg mixture and stir until combined.

  5. Pour the egg mixture over the dry ingredients and mix well.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a baking dish and cover.

  2. Bake for 20 minutes.

  3. Serve warm with 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.

  1. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Dates + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together100 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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 it set into a soft, custard-like pudding as it bakes.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and egg, giving the pudding body and a tender, moist crumb.
Dates
Add natural sweetness, chewy texture and moisture to the pudding.
Milk
Adds moisture and liquid that the bread crumbs soak up and the egg sets within.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, softening the crumb and adding flavour.

Swap the dates

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Datesthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, bread, egg, butter, sugar, 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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