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Dessert

Christmas Plum Pudding

A steamed dessert made with suet, dried fruit, spices, eggs, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Christmas Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the chopped suet with flour while mixing.

  2. Add the raisins, currants, sugar, bread crumbs, lemon rind, citron, and spices; mix thoroughly.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. Stir in the brandy; if the mixture is too stiff, add another egg; if too soft, add more crumbs.

  5. Transfer the mixture to a pudding mold.

Steam and serve

  1. Place the mold in a kettle of boiling water, ensuring the water surrounds the pudding but does not leak in.

  2. Steam for 8 to 10 hours.

  3. Serve with wine or brandy sauce.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds richness and a moist, tender crumb as it melts during steaming.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help set the pudding structure as it steams.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding body and a light, soft texture.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps tenderise the crumb.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour, and helps keep the pudding moist.

The step that matters

Adjust the batter consistency before steaming. The batter must be firm enough to hold its shape in the mold but moist enough to stay tender. Adding an egg if too stiff or crumbs if too soft corrects the balance before the long steam, which sets the texture.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, raisin, sugar, bread, lemon, cinnamon, clove. 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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