Name: English Plum Pudding
Ingredients: 2 loaves of baker's bread; 1 quart of milk; 2 pounds of chopped suet; 1 quart of flour; 2 pounds of stoned raisins; 2 pounds of currants; ½ pound of citron; 3 to 6 eggs; 1½ cups of sugar; assorted spices

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).
Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,180 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

Baker's bread: Soaked in milk, it softens and binds the pudding while adding body.
Suet: Adds richness and fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender during long steaming.
Eggs: Set during steaming to bind the fruit and crumb into a firm, cohesive pudding.
Flour: Provides structure so the pudding holds its shape after steaming.
Raisins: Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps balance the richness of the suet and fruit.

The step that matters

Steaming for a long time. Steaming for many hours gently cooks the eggs and starches through and softens the dense mixture. Too little time leaves the center raw and the texture heavy.

Swap the currant

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

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Datesfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, flour, raisin, egg, 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.

English Plum Pudding