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Dessert

English Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, currants, suet, flour, sugar, eggs, brandy, and candied orange peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

English Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Mix all dry ingredients together in a large bowl.

  2. Beat the eggs, then add them to the brandy and mix thoroughly.

  3. Combine the egg-brandy mixture with the dry ingredients.

  4. Transfer the mixture to a pudding cloth or mold.

Cook

  1. Boil for 6 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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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 as they set during cooking.
Flour
Provides the starch that gives the pudding its body.
Stale bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help give the pudding a tender, moist crumb.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich in texture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a deeper, molasses-like flavor.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor, and helps moisten the mixture.

The step that matters

Transfer the mixture to a pudding cloth or mold. The mixture must be packed firmly and sealed well so it holds its shape and does not let in water during the long boil.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, flour, bread, nutmeg, sugar, egg, lemon):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, flour, bread, nutmeg, sugar, egg, lemon. 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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