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Preserve

English Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, sugar, bread crumbs, apples, raisins, currants, flour, eggs, citron, spices, milk, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the beef suet, sugar, bread crumbs, grated apples, raisins, currants, flour, eggs, citron, cloves, and cinnamon.

  2. If the batter is too stiff, add the sweet milk.

  3. Mix well and then stir in the brandy.

Cook

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

  2. Boil for six hours, ensuring it is fully cooked.

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

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

  3. Apple + curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

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

  5. Apple + raisintop 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the pudding sets during boiling.
Flour
Gives the batter body so it holds its shape once cooked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and add bulk, giving the pudding a tender, soft crumb.
Beef suet
Adds richness and fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the pudding a darker color.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Boil for six hours, ensuring it is fully cooked. A long, steady boil lets heat slowly penetrate the dense batter so the center sets fully. Undercooked puddings stay wet and heavy, while a rolling boil that runs dry or stops can scorch or leave the pudding unevenly cooked.

Swap the currant

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

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

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