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Dessert

Date Pudding

A steamed pudding made with dates, pecans, and citron, sweetened with sugar and flavored with cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Date Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the sugar and butter together thoroughly.

  2. Sift the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg together.

  3. Add the sifted mixture alternately with the sweet milk to the creamed mixture.

  4. Stir in the chopped dates, pecans, and citron. Mix well.

Steam and serve

  1. Place in covered baking powder cans.

  2. Steam for at least 2 ½ hours.

  3. Serve warm with rich sauce or thick cream.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + datestop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together283 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  5. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it steams.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender, rich crumb and carries flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps it brown slightly while cooking.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking so the pudding rises and turns light.
Dates
Add moisture and natural sweetness, keeping the pudding soft after steaming.

The step that matters

Steam for at least 2 ½ hours. Steaming gently and for a long time cooks the batter through with moist heat. Cutting the time short can leave the centre dense and doughy, so keep the water steadily simmering and the cans covered.

Swap the dates

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, milk, flour, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, flour, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg. 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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