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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A sweet, spiced pudding made with suet, flour, eggs, dried fruits, candied peel, almonds, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the chopped marrow or suet, dried flour, beaten eggs, grated nutmeg, powdered mace, cinnamon, ginger, and salt until well combined.

  2. Add the currants, chopped raisins, candied peel, blanched almonds, and grated sugar to the mixture, then stir in the brandy.

  3. If the batter is too stiff, add the white wine to loosen it.

Boil and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a buttered basin or mold and cover it.

  2. Boil for 4 to 5 hours.

  3. Once done, sprinkle with powdered sugar and garnish with sliced lemon.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Marrow or suet
Adds richness and a moist, tender texture as it melts during boiling.
Fine flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm as it cooks.
Currants and raisins
Add sweetness, chewy texture and dried-fruit body throughout the pudding.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour while helping keep the pudding moist.

The step that matters

Keeping the batter loose enough before boiling. Flour that is not fully hydrated can leave a dense, stiff pudding. Adding wine only when the batter is too stiff lets the cook judge texture, since over-wetting makes the pudding heavy and soggy.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, egg, nutmeg, mace, cinnamon, ginger, raisin):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, nutmeg, mace, cinnamon, ginger, raisin. 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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