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Dessert

English Christmas Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, currants, sultana raisins, mixed peel, almonds, flour, bread crumbs, suet, sugar, eggs, cider, salt, and allspice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

English Christmas Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Chop the raisins.

  2. Cut the almonds.

  3. Use the currants and sultana raisins whole.

  4. Cut the mixed peel into small strips.

Mix the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the chopped fruit, flour, bread crumbs, suet, and sugar.

  2. Add the salt, allspice, and beaten eggs.

  3. Pour in the cider last.

  4. Mix all ingredients well.

Steam and serve

  1. Transfer to buttered basins.

  2. Tie a cloth over the top of each basin.

  3. Place the basins in boiling water.

  4. Boil constantly for 5 hours, replenishing with boiling water as needed.

  5. Steam the pudding for about 1 hour.

  6. Serve with hard sauce or your favorite pudding sauce.

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 + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Currant + cidertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together500 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  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

Eggs
Bind the mixture and help the pudding set as it cooks.
Flour
Provides structure so the pudding holds its shape when cooked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding a light, tender body.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich in texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the spices and fruit.
Raisins
Add moisture and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Keep the water boiling constantly. Steady boiling water around the basins cooks the pudding evenly. If the water drops and stops boiling, the pudding cooks unevenly and can turn heavy and dense.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, almond, flour, bread, sugar, egg, cider. 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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