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Dessert

English Plum Pudding

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,781 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

English Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. Mix currants, raisins, citron, bread crumbs, and suet in a bowl.

  2. Add sugar and baking soda, then mix thoroughly.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and add milk and brandy.

  4. Combine the egg mixture with the dry ingredients, folding in the egg whites last.

Boil and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a pudding mold and boil for 4 to 5 hours.

  2. Prepare the pudding the night before serving.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  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

Eggs
Bind the batter and give the pudding its set structure when cooked.
Bread crumbs
Add body and absorb liquid, giving the pudding a soft, cake-like crumb.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and helps balance the rich fruit and fat.
Baking soda
Releases gas that helps lift and lighten the batter.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour that deepens the taste of the dried fruit.

The step that matters

Boil the pudding for the full time. A long, steady boil gently sets the egg and cooks the crumb and suet through. Boiling too briefly leaves the centre dense and underset, while a rough boil can disturb the mold and the texture.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, bread, almond, sugar, egg, milk, brandy. 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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