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Dessert

Canadian Plum Pudding

A pudding made with flour, milk, brown sugar, allspice, citron, baking powder, eggs, molasses, raisins, currants, suet, and salt, boiled in a pudding bag.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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 ↓

Canadian Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Mix all ingredients together to form a very stiff batter.

  2. Sift a little flour over the raisins and currants before mixing them in.

Boil and serve

  1. Place the mixture in a pudding bag and boil for 4 hours.

  2. Serve with sauce, either hot or cold.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Allspice + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,359 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  3. Allspice + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,475 recipes

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

  4. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  5. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the bulk and structure of the stiff batter as it sets.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set.
Baking powder
Releases gas to lighten the pudding and help it rise.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender while it cooks.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a deeper, molasses-like flavour.
Black molasses
Adds dark colour, moisture and a rich, caramel-like flavour.

The step that matters

Sifting flour over the raisins and currants before mixing them in. Dusting the fruit with flour helps it stay suspended evenly through the stiff batter instead of sinking to the bottom while the pudding boils and sets.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, sugar, allspice, egg, molasses, raisin):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Orangefits about as well
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, sugar, allspice, egg, molasses, raisin. 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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