Why it works: Dates and apple work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 119 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓
Date Puddings
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the filling
Scald and stone the dates.
Mix dates with grated apples, treacle, and suet.
Add spices or lemon/orange peel if desired.
Shape and cook
Form into a roly-poly shape.
Boil for about 2 hours.
Alternatively, layer fruit and paste in a greased basin.
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.
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Dates + appletop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together119 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Dates + raisintop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together358 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Apple + raisintop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,920 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,551 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Raisin + lemontop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,742 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Dates
- Provide the main sweetness and soft, moist body of the pudding.
- Suet
- Adds richness and fat, keeping the pudding moist and tender as it cooks.
- Grated apples
- Add moisture and a light fruity acidity that balances the sweetness.
- Treacle
- Adds deep sweetness, a dark colour and a rich molasses-like flavour.
The step that matters
Boiling the pudding. The pudding must be fully enclosed and kept at a steady boil for the whole time, with water topped up. This cooks the suet paste through and keeps it moist. If the water drops, the pudding cooks unevenly and can turn heavy and doughy.
Swap the lemon
The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (dates, apple, raisin):
- Figfits better
- Pearfits better
- Apricotfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against dates, apple, raisin. 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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