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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A baked dessert made with bread, raisins, eggs, milk, butter, sugar, and spice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Spread thin slices of light bread with butter.

  2. Layer the bread and boiled raisins in a pudding dish, alternating until within 1 inch of the top.

  3. In a bowl, beat the eggs and stir in the milk.

  4. Pour the egg and milk mixture over the bread and raisins.

  5. Add sugar and spice to taste.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 25 minutes.

  2. Serve with liquid sauce if desired.

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

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard and bind the pudding into a soft, sliceable structure.
Milk
Forms the liquid custard that soaks into the bread and keeps the pudding moist.
Light bread
Provides the body of the pudding, soaking up the custard as it bakes.
Raisins
Add pockets of sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the custard brown lightly on top.

The step that matters

Pour the egg and milk mixture over the bread and raisins. The bread needs time to soak up the custard evenly before baking; if it is poured in unevenly or the bread is left dry on top, the pudding bakes with dry patches and an uneven set.

Swap the raisin

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

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

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