Name: French Plum Pudding
Ingredients: ¼ lb. sifted flour; ½ lb. bread crumbs; ¾ lb. currants; ½ lb. raisins; 2 chopped apples; a little citron; ½ lb. suet; ½ lb. sugar (half browned to caramel); ⅓ cup brandy

Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

French Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Combine flour, bread crumbs, currants, raisins, chopped apples, citron, suet, and sugar in a bowl.
Add the brandy and mix well.
Transfer the mixture into a mold.
Boil for 3½ hours.
Serve with wine 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.

Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,180 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Apple + brandytop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,291 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Currant + appletop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,918 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, bread, raisin, apple, sugar, brandy):

Figfits better
Vanillafits better
Apricotfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, bread, raisin, apple, sugar, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.