Name: English Plum Pudding
Ingredients: 2 ounces blanched almonds; 8 eggs; 1 pint cream; 1 pound sifted flour; 1 pound stoned raisins; 1 pound washed and dried currants; 1 pound finely chopped suet; sugar to taste; spices to taste; candied orange peel or citron; 2 glasses currant wine, grape juice, or cider

Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 ↓

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.

Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Almond + raisintop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,781 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,673 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,125 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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 it set firm as it cooks.
Flour: Provides the structure that holds the dense fruit and suet together.
Suet: Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Raisins: Add sweetness and chewy moisture throughout the pudding.
Currants: Add tart, concentrated fruit flavour and moisture.
Almonds: Add fat and nutty flavour, and thicken the batter as a fine paste.

The step that matters

Keeping the pudding covered and boiling. A pudding bag or tightly covered pan keeps steam trapped around the mixture during the long boil. If the seal is loose or the water boils dry, the pudding loses moisture and can dry out or cook unevenly.

Swap the currant

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

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Lemonfits better
Currantthe original

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

English Plum Pudding