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Dessert

Real Old English Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, currants, suet, candied peel, bread crumbs, flour, sugar, eggs, nutmeg, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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 ↓

Real Old English Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Sprinkle a little flour before mixing to reduce stickiness.

  2. In a large bowl, mix all ingredients together with your hands until well combined.

  3. Form the mixture into small puddings.

Boil

  1. Cover the top of the pudding with paper and tie it in a cloth.

  2. Boil the puddings for about 6 hours initially, then 2 hours on the day of serving.

  3. If boiling twice, do not remove the cloth but tighten it for the second boiling.

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.

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. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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
Bind the mixture together and help it set as it cooks.
Flour
Provides structure so the pudding holds its shape during boiling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and lighten the texture of the pudding.
Raisins
Contribute sweetness, chewy texture and body to the pudding.

The step that matters

Boiling the puddings. Long, steady boiling cooks the dense fruit and suet mixture through and sets it firmly. If the water drops or the pudding is boiled too briefly, the centre can stay wet and heavy.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Datesfits about as well
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, bread, flour, sugar, egg, nutmeg, brandy. 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.

More plum pudding recipes

English 165Christmas 156Sauce 71Eggless 34Baked 33Vegetable 19 See all 649 →

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