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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, molasses, milk, raisins, currants, citron, eggs, flour, spices, salt, baking powder, and baking soda.

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 ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Combine suet, molasses, milk, raisins, currants, citron, and eggs in a large bowl.

  2. Mix flour, spices, salt, baking powder, and baking soda in another bowl.

  3. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until well combined.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam for 4 to 5 hours.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich in texture.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and a deep flavor with some moisture.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the pudding sets.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the pudding together.
Baking powder
Releases gas to lighten the batter and help it rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acidity to help the pudding rise and darken.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Adding flour in stages and stirring until combined prevents lumps and overmixing. Overmixing develops gluten, which can make the pudding dense and tough.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, milk, raisin, egg, flour. 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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