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Dessert

English Plum-Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, flour, dried fruit, apples, rum, eggs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

English Plum-Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Remove the skin and sinews from the beef suet and chop it finely.

  2. Mix the chopped suet with the flour until well combined.

  3. Add the raisins, currants, citron, nutmeg, chopped apples, rum, and eggs; mix well.

  4. Transfer the mixture to a buttered mold.

Cook

  1. Place the mold in a saucepan filled with water to the height of the mold.

  2. Simmer gently for 6 hours.

  3. Alternatively, tie the pudding in a buttered cloth and boil in water for 6 hours.

Serve

  1. Turn the pudding out of the mold and serve.

  2. Remove the cloth and serve with a sauce or sprinkle with powdered sugar and pour rum over it, lighting it before serving.

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

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

  3. Apple + rumtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together214 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 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

Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it steams.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help set it into a firm, cohesive pudding.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Currants
Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Apples
Add moisture and a fruity tartness that balances the richness.

The step that matters

Simmering gently for the full 6 hours. A rolling boil or low water level can make the outside harden or the mold crack and the water boil dry. Steady, gentle heat cooks the pudding evenly and keeps it moist.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour, raisin, nutmeg, apple, rum, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, raisin, nutmeg, apple, rum, egg. 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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