Name: Rich Plum Pudding
Ingredients: 1 pound raisins; 1 pound currants; 1 pound fresh suet; 1 pound flour; 1 pound brown sugar; 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg; 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon; 4 eggs; 1 cup milk

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 ↓

Rich Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the fruit and suet

Stone the raisins and chop them finely.
Wash and pick the currants, then place them in a colander and rinse under water.
Chop the fresh suet very small.

Mix the batter

In a large bowl, combine the raisins, currants, suet, flour, brown sugar, nutmeg, and cinnamon.
Beat the eggs and mix them with the milk, then add to the dry ingredients.
Stir until well combined, then pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

Steam and serve

Cover the mold with a cloth and steam for 6 hours.
Let it cool before serving.

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.

Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,390 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,377 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Bind the mixture and add structure as the pudding sets during steaming.
Flour: Provides the starch and structure that hold the pudding together.
Fresh suet: Adds fat and richness, keeping the pudding moist and tender as it steams.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and a deeper, molasses-like flavor.
Raisins: Add concentrated sweetness, chewy texture and fruit body.

Swap the currant

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

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Lemonfits better
Currantthe original

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