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Dessert

National Plum Pudding

A suet-based pudding with raisins, currants, bread crumbs, sugar, spices, and eggs, boiled for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

National Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the suet, raisins, currants, bread crumbs, sugar, lemon peel, nutmeg, mace, ginger, and beaten eggs in a large bowl.

  2. Transfer the mixture into a pudding cloth and tie securely.

Boil and store

  1. Boil the pudding in water for 5 hours.

  2. To store, hang the pudding in a cool place in the cloth it was boiled in.

Serve

  1. When ready to serve, remove from the cloth, cover with a clean cloth, and warm through in hot water.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

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.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm during boiling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the pudding body and a soft, tender crumb.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture through the pudding.
Currants
Add sweetness and chewy texture through the pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the pudding brown slightly as it cooks.

The step that matters

Boil the pudding in water for 5 hours. The cloth must be tied securely so water cannot enter, and the water must stay at a steady boil for the full time so the eggs and suet set and the pudding cooks through evenly.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, bread, sugar, lemon, nutmeg, mace, ginger):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, bread, sugar, lemon, nutmeg, mace, ginger. 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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