Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Date Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
In a bowl, combine sour milk, sugar or molasses, butter, baking soda, and spices.
Stir in chopped dates and enough flour to make a stiff batter.
Steam
Transfer the mixture to a greased pudding mold and steam for 2 hours.
Make the sauce
For the sauce, beat 2 eggs with a pinch of salt until light.
Gradually add 2 cups of sugar until foamy.
Stir in 2-3 tablespoons of boiling water and 1 tablespoon of vanilla.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Milk + datestop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together470 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Sour milk
- Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to release gas that lightens the pudding.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in sour milk to produce carbon dioxide, helping the pudding rise.
- Dates
- Add moisture, natural sweetness, and a soft, chewy texture.
- Flour
- Provides structure, setting the batter so the pudding holds its shape after steaming.
- Sugar or molasses
- Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deeper flavor and color.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
The step that matters
Make a stiff batter with enough flour. Flour sets the batter's structure while it steams. Too little flour leaves a wet, dense pudding that may collapse, while the right stiffness holds the shape and texture.
Swap the dates
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, butter, flour):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Datesthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, butter, flour. 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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