Name: Eng-lish Plum Pudding
Ingredients: ½ pound butter; 1 pound brown sugar; 1 pound stoned raisins; ½ pound currants; 8 eggs; ¼ pound citron; 2 nutmegs, grated; 1 pound flour or bread crumbs

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 ↓

Eng-lish Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

Rub the butter into a cream with the brown sugar.
Add the stoned raisins, currants, eggs, citron, grated nutmegs, and flour or bread crumbs, then mix well until combined.
Pour the mixture into a pudding mold.

Boil the pudding

Boil for 6 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.

Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,377 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,180 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter: Creamed with the sugar, it adds richness and a tender, rich texture.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and moisture, with a deep molasses flavour.
Eggs: Bind the mixture and set during cooking to give structure.
Flour or bread crumbs: Provide body and absorb moisture so the pudding holds its shape.
Raisins: Add sweetness, chewy texture and moisture to the pudding.
Nutmeg: Gives the pudding its warm, aromatic spice flavour.

The step that matters

Boil for the full 6 hours. A steady, gentle boil for the whole time cooks the eggs and flour through, setting the pudding firm. Cutting the time short can leave it dense, wet or underset in the centre.

Swap the currant

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

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Lemonfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, raisin, egg, nutmeg, 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 165 Christmas 156 Sauce 71 Eggless 34 Baked 33 Vegetable 19 See all 649 →

Red Currant Jelly65 recipes

Currant Ice Cream32 recipes

Currant Sherbet9 recipes

Currant and Raspberry Ice7 recipes

Like knowing why a recipe works?

The free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.

Eng-lish Plum Pudding