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Dessert

English Plum Pudding

A boiled pudding made with raisins, currants, suet, flour or bread, sugar, lemon peel, mace, nutmeg, ginger, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a large bowl, combine the raisins, currants, suet, flour or bread, sugar, lemon peel, mace, nutmeg, and ginger.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and mix everything well.

Cook

  1. Place the mixture in a cloth, tie it securely, leaving room for expansion.

  2. Boil the pudding for at least 2 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.

  1. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together and help it set as it cooks.
Flour or finely crumbled bread
Absorbs liquid and gives the pudding body and structure.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Currants
Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the pudding brown slightly.

The step that matters

Leave room for expansion in the cloth. The pudding swells as it heats and the flour or bread absorbs moisture. If the cloth is packed tightly, the pudding can be squeezed out of shape or burst the tie as it expands.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, flour, sugar, lemon, mace, nutmeg, ginger):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, flour, sugar, lemon, mace, nutmeg, ginger. 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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