IllustrationWhy it works: Peach and milk match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 780 recipes mention both. Both carry phellandrene, which smells minty. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Directions
Make the pudding
Combine suet, bread, peaches, milk, flour, sugar, cloves, and eggs.
Parboil peaches, cut into fine pieces, and flavor them before mixing.
Mix ingredients and boil like plum pudding.
Serve
Serve hot with wine sauce.
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.
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Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Peach + milktop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together780 recipes
Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).
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Bread + milktop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together11,363 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Peach + clovetop 5% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together261 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Bread + eggtop 6% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together22,584 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 8% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together76,993 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 76,993 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Suet
- Adds fat that keeps the pudding rich and moist as it cooks.
- Bread
- Forms the body of the pudding, softened with milk so it blends evenly.
- Flour
- Provides starch that thickens and gives the pudding structure as it cooks.
- Eggs
- Bind the mixture and set with heat to hold the pudding together.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps balance the spices and fruit.
- Peaches
- Contribute fruit flavor and moisture to the pudding.
The step that matters
Mix ingredients and boil like plum pudding. The eggs and flour set gradually as heat reaches the centre. Cooking long enough at a steady heat firms the pudding through, while cooking too hard can make it dense or uneven.
Flavor stand-ins for the clove
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, peach, milk, flour, sugar, egg):
- Cinnamonbetter flavor fit
- Nutmegbetter flavor fit
- Gingerbetter flavor fit
- Clovethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, peach, milk, flour, sugar, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).
“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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