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Dessert

Steamed Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with buttered crackers, milk, eggs, molasses, sugar, raisins, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Friday club, Yarmouth, Mass. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Molasses and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Steamed Plum Pudding

six or eight persons

Ingredients

Directions

Soak the crackers

  1. Butter and soak six crackers in one pint of milk overnight with two eggs, two tablespoonfuls molasses, and one-half cup sugar.

Steam the pudding

  1. In the morning, lay the pudding to steam, putting a little cinnamon and nutmeg between layers with one cup raisins.

  2. Steam for two hours.

  3. This yields enough for six or eight persons.

Make the cream and serve

  1. Beat one cup sugar, butter the size of half an egg, and one egg to a cream.

  2. Add a little salt and flavoring.

  3. Just before serving, add two tablespoonfuls of boiling water.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

851Calories
28 gProtein
15 gFat
151 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 8 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Molasses1 tbsp (20g)58
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
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 Friday club, Yarmouth, Mass. [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. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  4. Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Crackers
Soaked in milk, they soften and bind into a moist, tender body.
Milk
Moistens the crackers and dissolves the sugar, keeping the pudding soft.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and add richness and structure as they set.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, depth of flavor and a dark color.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps it brown and hold moisture.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture between the layers.

The step that matters

Steam for the full two hours. Steam heats the pudding gently and evenly and keeps its surface moist. If the water runs low, the pudding dries and sets unevenly, so the water must be kept steadily boiling throughout.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, molasses, sugar, 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.

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