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Dessert

Date Pudding

A steamed pudding made with dates, suet, sugar, bread crumbs, eggs, and spices, optionally soaked in sherry or whiskey.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Date Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the dates in a small cup of sherry or whiskey if desired.

  2. Dissolve the Magic Soda in hot water.

Mix and cook

  1. In a bowl, mix the dates, suet, dissolved Magic Soda, brown sugar, bread crumbs, salt, nutmeg, and beaten eggs.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a buttered mold.

  3. Boil the pudding for 2.5 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with brandy sauce.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Dates + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together100 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Dates + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together194 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Dates
Provide sweetness and a soft, moist body to the pudding.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Magic soda
Releases gas that helps the pudding rise and lighten.
Bread crumbs
Give structure and absorb moisture so the pudding holds together.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help set the pudding as it cooks.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a deeper, caramel-like flavor.

The step that matters

Boil the pudding for 2.5 hours. The pudding must cook long and steadily in gently simmering water so it sets through and turns moist rather than dense or gummy. Letting the water boil dry or drop too low can scorch or undercook it.

Swap the dates

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, bread, nutmeg, egg, butter, sherry):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, bread, nutmeg, egg, butter, sherry. 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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