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Dessert

Christmas Plum Pudding

A steamed plum pudding made with raisins, currants, citron, apples, suet, bread crumbs, eggs, sugar, nutmeg, salt, and flour, served with a butter‑brown sugar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Women of the First Congregational Church (Marysville, Ohio) · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Christmas Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pudding

  1. Flour the fruit thoroughly with a quart of flour.

  2. In a large bowl or tray, combine the fruit with sugar, nutmeg, and milk, then stir in the bread crumbs and suet one after the other until all are used, adding enough flour to bind the mixture.

  3. Dip a pudding cloth in boiling water, dredge it in a thick coating of flour, place the mixture in the cloth, and tie tightly, allowing room to swell.

Boil and serve

  1. Boil the pudding in a good-sized pot with plenty of hot water for two to three hours, replenishing as needed from a teakettle.

  2. When done, turn out onto a large flat dish and serve with a sprig of holly or other evergreen with bright berries.

Make the sauce

  1. Serve with a butter-brown sugar sauce.

  2. To make the sauce, cream a half pound sweet butter, stir in three-quarters pound brown sugar, and the beaten yolk of an egg; simmer for a few moments over a slow fire, stirring constantly; when near boiling, add a half pint bottled grape juice, and serve after grating a little nutmeg on the surface.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

758Calories
20 gProtein
19 gFat
125 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
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 Women of the First Congregational Church (Marysville, Ohio). 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. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they 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

Flour
Coats the fruit and binds the mixture, giving the pudding its body and structure.
Eggs
Bind the batter together and help set the pudding's texture.
Sweet butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the sauce a smooth, creamy body.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and gives the sauce its caramel flavour.
Raisins
Provide sweetness and moisture, and fill the pudding with concentrated fruit flavour.

The step that matters

Tie the cloth tightly, leaving room to swell. The pudding expands as it cooks. A floured cloth forms a protective skin, and a loose tie lets the pudding swell without bursting the cloth or letting water seep in and make it soggy.

Swap the grape

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, butter, sugar, flour, egg, nutmeg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, butter, sugar, flour, egg, 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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