Skip to main content
Dessert

Date Pudding

A steamed pudding made with dates, figs, suet, flour, sugar, spices, bread crumbs, milk, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Date Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a large bowl, combine the chopped dates, figs, suet, flour, sugar, ginger, and cinnamon.

  2. Mix in the bread crumbs, milk, and beaten eggs until well combined.

  3. Transfer the mixture into a mold with a tight cover.

Steam and serve

  1. Place the mold in a pot of water on the stove and steam for 3 hours.

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. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Dates + figtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together318 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  3. Fig + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together614 recipes

    Shared aroma: cinnamyl acetate (sweet aromatic, cinnamon).

  4. Dates + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together283 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during steaming.
All-purpose flour
Provides the starch that gives the pudding its body and structure.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich during long steaming.
Dates
Add natural sweetness and a soft, moist texture.
Figs
Add sweetness and a soft, moist texture to the pudding.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and help give the pudding a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Steaming the mold. The mold must be tightly covered and the water kept simmering for the full 3 hours. Steam keeps the pudding moist and cooks it evenly; if the cover leaks or the water boils dry, the pudding can dry out or cook unevenly.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (dates, fig, flour, sugar, cinnamon, bread, milk):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against dates, fig, flour, sugar, cinnamon, bread, 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.

More date pudding recipes

Steamed 8 See all 100 →

You might also like

Soft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesGingerbreadGingerbread25 recipesGinger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipes