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Dessert

English Plum Pudding

A traditional English plum pudding made with bread, suet, raisins, brown sugar, brandy, ginger, flour, salt, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

Mix and fill

  1. Combine bread, suet, raisins, brown sugar, brandy, ginger, flour, salt, and eggs in a large bowl.

  2. Mix thoroughly and pour into a pudding mold, leaving room for expansion.

Boil

  1. Boil for 5 to 6 hours.

Store

  1. Store in a cold, dry place for winter use.

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. Raisin + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,242 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  4. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread
Adds bulk and body that helps the pudding hold its shape.
Suet
Fat that keeps the pudding moist and gives it a rich texture.
Raisins
Add sweetness and a chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together and set it firm as it cooks.
Flour
Adds structure that helps the mixture hold together while it cooks.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a deeper, molasses-like flavor.

The step that matters

Leave room for expansion in the mold. The mixture swells as it heats and steams during the long boil. If the mold is packed full, the pudding can push out or split the mold, and it may cook unevenly.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, raisin, sugar, brandy, flour, 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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