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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, butter, sugar, molasses, baking soda, spices, eggs, buttermilk, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the raisins, butter, sugar, molasses, baking soda, mixed spices, and eggs.

  2. Add enough flour to make the mixture stiffer than molasses gingerbread.

  3. Stir in the buttermilk with an additional teaspoon of baking soda.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam for 4 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. Sauce + buttermilktop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together129 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the pudding sets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the buttermilk and molasses to lighten the pudding.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender crumb.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour and a deep, slightly bitter sweetness.
Flour
Gives the batter body so it holds its shape while steaming.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and acidity that activates the baking soda.

The step that matters

Stiffen the batter with flour. The batter must be stiffer than gingerbread batter so it holds together in the mold. Too thin a mixture gives a soggy, collapsed pudding, because the eggs and rising agent need enough structure to set.

“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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