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Dessert

Vegetable Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with grated carrots, raw potatoes, apples, suet, raisins, sugar, flour, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Ramblers' club, Minneapolis. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Vegetable Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Sift the flour, soda, and salt together.

  2. Add the raisins.

  3. Mix the grated carrots, raw potatoes, apples, and suet.

  4. Add the mixture to the flour and spices.

  5. Steam for 3 hours or more.

  6. Combine 1 cup chopped suet, 2 eggs, 1 cup molasses, and fill a butter cup full of sugar.

  7. Add 1 cup currants and 1 cup raisins.

  8. Chop the peel of half a large orange very finely.

  9. Add 1 cup sweet milk, a teaspoon of soda dissolved in a little water, and a teaspoon of baking powder to 3 cups of flour (or more if needed).

  10. Add 1 teaspoon cinnamon and a teaspoon nutmeg.

  11. Add 1 cup English walnuts and preserved cherries.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

857Calories
29 gProtein
18 gFat
146 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 10 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Walnut1 walnut half (4g)26
Carrot1 medium (61g)25
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Cinnamon1 tsp ground (2.6g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

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

By Ramblers' club, Minneapolis. [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. Carrot + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together506 recipes

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

  3. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + walnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together647 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Builds the main structure of the pudding as it sets during steaming.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help give it a firm, cohesive set.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich in texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crumb brown slightly during cooking.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and helps hydrate the flour into a batter.

The step that matters

Steam for 3 hours or more. Steam gives gentle, moist, even heat that sets the batter without drying it. If the water boils low and the steamer runs dry, the pudding can dry out or scorch on the base.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, raisin, sugar, flour, milk, walnut, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, raisin, sugar, flour, milk, walnut, 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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