Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 ↓
Plum Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the batter
Beat the whole eggs and egg yolks well.
Stir the flour into the milk.
Add the grated bread, chopped kidney fat, raisins, currants, and salt; mix thoroughly.
Fill and cook
Grease a pudding mold with butter and sprinkle with bread crumbs.
Pour the mixture into the mold and boil for 3 to 5 hours.
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.
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Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,180 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
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Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
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.
- Flour
- Thickens the milk and helps give the pudding body.
- White bread
- Soaks up the milk and gives the pudding a soft, tender crumb.
- Kidney fat
- Adds richness and moistness to the pudding.
- Raisins
- Add sweetness and chewy texture.
- Currants
- Add sweetness and chewy texture.
The step that matters
Boiling the pudding for the full time. The mold must be cooked long enough for the eggs and flour to set through the center. Cutting the boil short can leave the pudding wet and loose inside.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, flour, milk, bread, raisin):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Datesfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, milk, bread, raisin. 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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