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Dessert

Christmas Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, citron, spices, eggs, sugar, brandy, caramel, and milk, served with wine sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Christmas Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Sift the flour and baking powder together.

  2. Add the chopped citron, lemon, and orange.

  3. Mix in the ground spices, beaten eggs, sugar, brandy, and caramel.

  4. Add milk gradually until the mixture is stiff.

Boil and serve

  1. Place the mixture in a buttered cloth over a bowl to secure its shape and tie tightly.

  2. Boil for four hours.

  3. Serve with wine sauce.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Orange + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the structure of the pudding as the batter sets during cooking.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lightens the batter so the pudding rises and stays tender.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and add structure and richness as they set.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor and helps carry the spices through the batter.
Citron, lemon and orange
Provides chopped candied citrus that adds acidity, aroma and chewy texture.

The step that matters

Add milk gradually until the mixture is stiff. Too much liquid makes the batter loose, so it may spread and lose its shape in the cloth. Adding milk slowly lets you stop once the mixture is stiff enough to hold together while boiling.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, orange, cinnamon, clove, allspice, egg, sugar):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, orange, cinnamon, clove, allspice, egg, sugar. 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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