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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed plum pudding made with raisins, citron, stale bread, milk, eggs, sugar, butter, and served with a sweet sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,377 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pudding

  1. Soak the crumbled bread in milk overnight.

  2. In the morning, beat the yolks and whites of the eggs separately until light.

  3. Mix the sugar into the yolks.

  4. Combine the soaked bread with melted butter, then add the egg mixture and the raisins and citron.

Boil and make the sauce

  1. Cover a cloth and place the pudding in boiling water, turning it frequently.

  2. Boil for 3.5 hours.

  3. For the sauce, melt ¼ pound of butter and mix with ½ pound of sugar and ½ pint of hot water.

  4. Stir in 2 beaten eggs and season with nutmeg and wine. Keep hot without boiling.

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 + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whisked separately, they add lightness and bind the pudding together.
Stale bread
Soaked in milk, it absorbs liquid and gives the pudding its body.
Butter
Melted into the bread mixture, it adds richness and a tender texture.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy fruit pieces throughout the pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps tenderize the pudding.

The step that matters

Keep the sauce hot without boiling. Boiling a sauce containing beaten eggs can scramble them, making it grainy and thin. Gentle heat keeps it smooth.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, egg, sugar, butter, sauce, nutmeg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinthe original
  4. Coconutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, egg, sugar, butter, sauce, nutmeg. 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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