Name: Date Pudding
Ingredients: 1 cup sour milk; 1 cup sugar or molasses; 1 tablespoon butter; 1 teaspoon baking soda; spices to taste; 1 lb dates, pitted; graham flour, as needed

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.
Add pitted dates and mix well.
Stir in enough graham flour to make a stiff batter.

Steam and serve

Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.
Steam for 2 hours.
Serve with cream and sugar.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Milk + datestop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked 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 baking soda to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce carbon dioxide, helping the pudding rise.
Dates: Provide natural sweetness, moisture, and chewy body to the pudding.
Graham flour: Forms the structure of the stiff batter that holds the pudding together.
Sugar or molasses: Adds sweetness and moisture, and molasses adds depth of flavour and darker colour.