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Dessert

Date Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, spices, molasses, milk, butter, dates, baking soda, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, salt, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, molasses, milk, melted butter, chopped dates, baking soda, and boiling water until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

Steam

  1. Steam the pudding for several hours until cooked through.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  5. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and moisture to the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses' acidity to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Dates
Add chewy texture and natural sweetness throughout the pudding.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and adds moisture to the batter.

The step that matters

Steam the pudding until cooked through. Steaming cooks the batter gently with moist heat, so it sets evenly without drying out. Stopping too early leaves the center wet and dense, so the pudding should be tested for doneness rather than judged by time alone.

Swap the dates

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

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

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