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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, citron, stale bread, milk, sugar, butter, eggs, and a sauce of butter, sugar, hot water, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Keokuk (Iowa). Westminster Presbyterian church · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bread and eggs

  1. Crumb stale bread and leave it overnight.

  2. In the morning pour a pint of milk over the bread and let it stand until ready to mix.

  3. Beat separately the yolks and whites of ten eggs very light; add half a cup of sugar to the yolks.

  4. Melt a quarter of a pound of butter.

Mix and boil the pudding

  1. Pour the bread into a tray, mix in the melted butter, then add the eggs, then add the fruit.

  2. Flour a cloth, and when the water is boiling, place the pudding on the cloth and turn frequently.

  3. Boil the pudding for three and a half hours.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, combine one-fourth of a pound of butter, half a pound of sugar, and half a pint of hot water; stir a little and then add two eggs well beaten.

  2. Season the sauce with nutmeg and wine, and keep it hot without boiling.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

895Calories
28 gProtein
26 gFat
136 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 7 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Keokuk (Iowa). Westminster Presbyterian church. 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. See the original page.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, 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 lightness when the whites are beaten separately.
Stale bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and form the body of the pudding.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that softens the crumb and carries flavour.
Raisins
Provide sweetness and chewy fruit texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Boiling the pudding in a floured cloth. The pudding must be kept at a steady boil so it cooks through evenly. Turning it often helps prevent one side from becoming soggy or dense while the floured cloth forms a skin.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, sugar, butter, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, sugar, butter, 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.

More plum pudding recipes

English 165Christmas 156Sauce 71Eggless 34Baked 33Vegetable 19 See all 649 →

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