Name: Old English Plum Pudding
Ingredients: 1 pound seeded raisins; 1 pound currants; 1 pound beef suet; 1 pound brown sugar; 1 pound flour; 1 pound fine wheaten bread crumbs; ½ pound candied orange peel; ½ pound citron

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 ↓

Old English Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Mix

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and mix thoroughly until well combined.

Steam

Butter a pudding mold and fill it with the mixture.
Cover the mold and place it in a pot of boiling water.
Boil continuously until the pudding is cooked through.

Serve

Let it cool slightly before serving.

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.

Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,180 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Raisin + orangetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,684 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef suet: Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Flour: Provides the starch and structure that hold the pudding together.
Fine wheaten bread crumbs: Absorb moisture and help give the pudding a soft, tender body.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and a molasses flavour.
Seeded raisins: Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Currants: Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Keep the water boiling continuously. Steaming in boiling water transfers heat steadily to the mold. If the water drops below a boil for long, the pudding cooks unevenly and may stay underdone in the centre.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, beef, sugar, flour, wheaten bread, orange):

Figfits better
Vanillafits better
Applefits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, beef, sugar, flour, wheaten bread, orange. 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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Old English Plum Pudding