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Dessert

Plum Fudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, raisins, currants, sugar, spices, and alcohol, served with a sweet sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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 ↓

Plum Fudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs well in a bowl.

  2. Add ½ cup of milk and 1 teaspoon of salt to the eggs.

  3. Mix in the chopped beef suet, raisins, currants, brown sugar, grated nutmeg, and candied peel.

  4. Stir well and add another ½ cup of milk.

  5. Beat in enough flour to make a stiff paste.

  6. Add ⅓ cup of brandy and ⅓ cup of white wine.

Boil the pudding

  1. Tie the mixture tightly in a cloth or place it in a mold.

  2. Boil for 5 hours if in a mold, or 4 hours if in a cloth.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. For the sauce, melt some butter and mix in loaf sugar, ⅓ cup of white wine, and ⅓ cup of brandy.

  2. Bring the sauce to a boil, pour half over the pudding, and serve the rest in a hot sauceboat.

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

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

  3. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Milk + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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 boiling.
Beef suet
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the pudding tender as it cooks.
Flour
Forms the stiff paste that holds the pudding together.
Raisins
Add sweetness and moisture, plumping as they absorb liquid during boiling.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour to the pudding and sauce.

The step that matters

Tying or molding the mixture tightly. A loose cloth or mold lets water seep in during the long boil, making the pudding soggy and loose. A snug wrap keeps its shape and texture.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, beef, raisin, sugar, nutmeg, flour. 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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