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Dessert

Date Pudding

A baked dessert made with sugar, eggs, flour, vanilla, nuts, and dates.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and dates work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 218 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. 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).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix sugar, egg yolks, flour, vanilla, chopped nuts, and chopped dates.

  2. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

  3. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake for 20 minutes or until set.

Serve

  1. Serve cold with whipped cream, sweetened and flavored with vanilla.

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. Vanilla + datestop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together218 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Vanilla + nutstop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together638 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Nuts + datestop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together178 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Beaten whites trap air, giving the pudding a light, airy lift as it sets.
Egg yolks
Set into the custard-like body of the pudding as they bake, binding the mixture.
Flour
Gives the pudding body and helps it hold its shape after baking.
Dates
Add natural sweetness and a soft, chewy moisture to the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and adds moisture and tenderness to the crumb.
Chopped nuts
Add crunch and a toasty, rich flavor against the soft dates.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stirring too vigorously deflates the foam that gives the pudding its lightness. Fold gently so the air stays trapped while the batter bakes and sets.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, flour, vanilla, dates):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Brazil nutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, flour, vanilla, dates. 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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