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Dessert

Poor Man's Plum Pudding

A boiled or steamed pudding made from molasses, sweet milk, butter, raisins, salt, flour, and served with a lemon butter sugar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Des Moines. Plymouth church. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 23 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

Poor Man's Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the first pudding

  1. Combine molasses, sweet milk, melted butter, raisins, saleratus, salt, and flour until the mixture has the consistency of pound cake.

  2. Boil the mixture for four hours, or steam it.

  3. Prepare the sauce: combine half pint boiling water, half tea cup butter, one teacup sugar, and the grated rind and juice of one lemon.

  4. Serve the pudding with the sauce.

Make the second pudding

  1. Mix yolks, flour, milk, and a little salt together.

  2. Stir in the beaten whites, beaten to a stiff froth.

  3. Bake the mixture in teacups in a quick oven.

  4. Prepare the sauce: beat sugar, butter, egg yolk, and corn starch to a cream.

  5. Add one pint boiling water, the beaten egg white, and the grated rind and juice of one lemon to the sauce.

  6. Serve the pudding with the sauce.

Make the third pudding

  1. Combine milk, flour, and eggs.

  2. Bake in cups in a hot oven.

  3. Serve with sauce.

  4. Beat the eggs well, then mix them with flour and sweet milk.

  5. Bake in cups in a quick oven.

  6. Serve with sauce.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

965Calories
28 gProtein
26 gFat
155 gCarbs

Counts 9 of 11 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 9 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
Molasses1 tbsp (20g)58
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0
Teanot 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 Des Moines. Plymouth church. [from old catalog]. 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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  4. Milk + teatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together738 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Corn + teatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together89 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

Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and a dark color to the pudding.
Eggs
Set the custard-like batter and, when whipped, add lift and airiness.
Flour
Provides structure as its starch thickens and sets with the eggs and milk.
Butter
Adds richness, fat and tenderness to the pudding and sauce.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps the batter bake into a soft, tender body.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten whites. Egg whites beaten to a stiff froth trap air that gives the pudding lift. Stirring them in gently keeps the bubbles, while vigorous mixing deflates them and leaves a denser result.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, milk, butter, flour, sugar, corn, tea):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, milk, butter, flour, sugar, corn, tea. 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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