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Dessert

Christmas Pudding

A steamed fruit pudding made with raisins, currants, suet, sugar, flour, bread crumbs, almonds, citron, lemon peel, eggs, brandy, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Christmas Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Prepare all ingredients separately.

  2. In a basin, combine raisins, sultanas, currants, suet, sugar, flour, bread crumbs, almonds, nutmeg, citron, and lemon peel.

  3. Break in the eggs and add brandy; mix well.

  4. Cover and let sit overnight.

  5. The next morning, add milk and stir well.

Boil and serve

  1. Butter a cloth and sprinkle with flour.

  2. Place the mixture in the cloth, tie it securely, and place in a basin.

  3. Pour in ½ gallon of boiling water, adding more as needed to maintain the level.

  4. Simmer for 2 hours and 30 minutes.

  5. Remove from the cloth and serve on a hot dish.

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

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

  3. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and add structure as the pudding sets during simmering.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding a light, soft body.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich in texture.
Flour
Helps thicken the mixture and gives it body as it cooks.
Raisins
Provide sweetness and chewy texture through the pudding.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour, and its alcohol carries flavour through the mixture.

The step that matters

Maintaining the water level during simmering. The pudding cooks by steam and boiling water surrounding the cloth. If the water boils down and the level drops, the pudding cooks unevenly and can become dry, so boiling water must be added as needed.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, beef, sugar, flour, bread, almond, nutmeg. 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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