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Dessert

English Plum Pudding

A boiled pudding made with raisins, currants, suet, flour, sugar, spices, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Gibson, Marietta Fauntleroy Hollyday, "Mrs. C. H. Gibson." · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

English Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Take one pound of raisins well stoned, and one pound of currants thoroughly washed. Chop a pound of suet very fine, and mix all together.

  2. Add quarter pound of flour or bread finely crumbled, three ounces of sugar, one and a half ounces of grated lemon peel, a blade of mace, half a small nutmeg, one teaspoonful of ginger, and half a dozen well beaten eggs. Work all well together.

Boil

  1. Put the mixture in a cloth, tie it firmly, allowing room for it to swell, and boil it not less than two hours.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

592Calories
14 gProtein
2 gFat
129 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 8 ingredients. The other 2 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
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Ginger1 tsp grated fresh (2g)2
Puddingnot in our table0
Macenot 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 Gibson, Marietta Fauntleroy Hollyday, "Mrs. C. H. Gibson.". 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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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 moist and rich as it cooks.
Eggs (in the method)
Bind the mixture together and add structure as the pudding sets.
Flour
Provides body and helps bind the mixture so it holds its shape.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Currants
Add sweetness, fruitiness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the pudding its rich flavour.

The step that matters

Allowing room in the cloth. The pudding swells as it boils, so the cloth must be tied loosely enough to leave room. Tying it too tightly can restrict expansion and split or distort the pudding.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, flour, sugar, lemon, ginger, mace, nutmeg):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, flour, sugar, lemon, ginger, mace, nutmeg. 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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