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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A boiled pudding made with eggs, suet, flour, sugar, raisins, currants, citron, wine, brandy, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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 ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the eggs well.

  2. Mix the suet, flour, sugar, wine, and spices gradually into the eggs.

  3. Beat the mixture thoroughly.

Cook

  1. Tie the mixture in a cloth bag securely.

  2. Boil the bag for 8 hours.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  5. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 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

Eggs
Bind the mixture and add structure and lift as they are beaten.
Beef suet
Adds fat and richness, giving the pudding a moist, tender texture.
Flour
Provides the starch that gives the pudding its body and structure.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the pudding a tender crumb.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Tying the cloth bag securely. If the bag is loose or not sealed, water can enter during the long boil and make the pudding soggy and watery. A firmly tied cloth keeps the mixture contained while still letting it cook evenly in the simmering water.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, flour, sugar, beef, raisin, wine, brandy):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, sugar, beef, raisin, wine, brandy. 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 plum pudding recipes

English 165Christmas 156Sauce 71Eggless 34Baked 33Vegetable 19 See all 649 →

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