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Dessert

English Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, currants, sugar, bread crumbs, suet, candied lemon peel, spices, almonds, brandy, and lemon rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

English Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Butter and flour a pudding cloth well.

  2. In a large pot, bring water to a boil.

Make and boil the pudding

  1. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and mix well.

  2. Place the mixture in the prepared pudding cloth and tie securely.

  3. Carefully place the pudding in the boiling water.

  4. Boil for 8 to 9 hours, or divide the mixture and 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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  4. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Nutmeg + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich during long boiling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding its soft, tender body.
Raisins
Provide sweetness, chewy texture and concentrated fruit flavor.
Fine moist sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the pudding moist and tender.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor, and helps preserve the pudding.

The step that matters

Carefully place the pudding in the boiling water. The water must be kept at a steady boil and the cloth tied securely so the pudding cooks evenly and does not leak or come apart during the long simmer.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, sugar, bread, lemon, nutmeg, cinnamon, almond. 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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