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Dessert

English Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, currants, suet, flour, eggs, brandy, sweet wine, sugar, spices, and optional sweet milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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

  1. Combine raisins, currants, suet, flour, eggs, brandy, sweet wine, sugar, and spices in a large bowl, and mix until well combined.

  2. If the mixture is too dry, add a little sweet milk.

Cook

  1. Tie the mixture tightly in a well-floured cloth.

  2. Boil the pudding in a large pot of water for several hours until cooked through.

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. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Brandy + winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  5. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 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

Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the dried fruit and eggs together.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set as it cooks.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Currants
Add tart sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Boil the pudding until cooked through. The pudding is cooked by long, steady boiling in its cloth. Too little time leaves the centre set poorly and doughy, while the cloth must be tied tightly so the water does not soak in and dilute the mixture.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, flour, egg, brandy, wine, sugar, milk. 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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