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Dessert

English Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with eggs, dried fruit, molasses, sugar, spices, suet, and flour.

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 ↓

English Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the eggs, raisins, currants, citron, candied lemon, sweet milk, flour, molasses, brown sugar, spices, cream of tartar, baking soda, chopped suet, and salt, then mix until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

Steam

  1. Steam the pudding for 4 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. 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. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Raisin + molassestop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 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 they set during cooking.
Flour
Forms the main structure that holds the pudding together once cooked.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender.
Cream of tartar
Reacts with baking soda to release gas that helps the pudding rise.
Baking soda
Produces carbon dioxide with the acid in cream of tartar, lightening the batter.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deep brown color with a rich flavor.

The step that matters

Steam the pudding for 4 hours. Steam gives gentle, even heat that sets the batter slowly, so the pudding cooks through without drying out or becoming dense at the edges.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, raisin, lemon, milk, flour, molasses, sugar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, raisin, lemon, milk, flour, molasses, sugar. 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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