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Christmas Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, bread crumbs, flour, dried fruit, candied citrus, nutmeg, eggs, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 ↓

Christmas Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Combine the shredded suet and coarse sea salt in a large bowl.

  2. Add the bread crumbs, flour, raisins, currants, candied lemon and citron, and grated nutmeg; mix thoroughly.

  3. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl and add them to the mixture.

  4. Gradually add milk until the mixture is moist but not too wet.

Cook

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

  2. Boil for 5 to 6 hours, or use a well-buttered mold instead.

  3. If using a mold, fill it not quite full, cover with buttered and floured paper, then with a floured pudding cloth.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and body that hold the pudding together.
All-purpose flour
Helps bind the mixture and gives it structure as it steams.
Eggs
Bind the ingredients and set during cooking to give the pudding its firmness.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Currants
Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Adding the milk gradually. Milk must be added a little at a time so the mixture becomes moist but not too wet. Too much liquid makes the pudding heavy and loose, so it may not hold its shape or set properly when boiled.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, flour, raisin, lemon, nutmeg, egg. 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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