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Dessert

Queen Victoria's Plum Pudding

A steamed plum pudding made with raisins, currants, citron, suet, flour, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Queen Victoria's Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.

  2. Add the milk and eggs, and mix until well combined.

Steam

  1. Transfer the mixture to a pudding mold.

  2. Steam for 6 to 8 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. Walnut + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during steaming.
Flour
Provides the main structure of the pudding as it cooks.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich.
Bread crumbs
Soak up liquid and help give the pudding a tender body.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a deeper, molasses-like flavor.
Raisins
Add sweetness, chewy texture and concentrated fruit flavor.

The step that matters

Steaming for 6 to 8 hours. The pudding must be kept at a steady simmer with enough water in the pot for the full time. Too little heat or water leaves the center dense and underset, while the long, gentle steam cooks the eggs and starches evenly.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, sugar, walnut, meat, nutmeg, flour, bread):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, sugar, walnut, meat, nutmeg, flour, bread. 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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