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Dessert

Old English Plum Pudding

A rich, fruit-filled pudding made with sugar, currants, raisins, plums, apples, suet, bread crumbs, eggs, almonds, lemon, citron peel, nutmeg, rum, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Plum and apple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 404 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Old English Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Mix together the sugar, black currants, Sultana raisins, Valencia raisins, chopped French plums, chopped apples, chopped beef suet, bread crumbs, eggs, chopped almonds, lemon zest, lemon juice, candied citron peel, grated nutmeg, rum, and brandy until well combined.

  2. Transfer the mixture into heavy porcelain basins and tie each basin in a heavy pudding cloth.

Boil and serve

  1. Boil the puddings for 4 hours after mixing.

  2. Boil for an additional 4 hours when ready to serve.

  3. Serve with a hot sauce flavored with brandy.

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. Plum + appletop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Black currant + appletop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together39 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Black currant + plumtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Raisin + appletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich during long boiling.
Fresh bread crumbs
Absorbs the liquids and gives the pudding body and a tender crumb.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together and add structure as the pudding sets.
Demerara sugar
Adds sweetness and a caramel-like depth of flavor.
Sultana raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Jamaica rum
Adds aroma and flavor, and helps preserve the pudding.

The step that matters

Boiling the puddings for the full time. Long, steady boiling cooks the eggs and crumbs through and sets the dense mixture. Too short a boil leaves it wet and heavy, and a rolling boil that runs dry can scorch the basin.

Swap the black currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, raisin, plum, apple, beef, bread, egg):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Black currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, raisin, plum, apple, beef, bread, egg. 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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