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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, currants, apples, suet, flour, breadcrumbs, citrus peel, spices, brandy, milk, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. In a large bowl, combine the stoned raisins, sultana raisins, currants, minced apples, minced beef suet, flour, bread crumbs, and mixed citrus peel.

  2. Season the mixture with ground cloves, ginger, and nutmeg to taste.

  3. Add the brandy, a little milk, and the eggs, then mix thoroughly.

Steam and serve

  1. Butter a pudding mold and fill it with the mixture.

  2. Cover it with paper or cloth.

  3. Steam the pudding for 4 hours.

  4. Serve with arrow-root sauce made with water, seasoned with brandy and a little sweet wine.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Currant + appletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and help the pudding set as it steams.
Flour
Adds structure so the pudding holds its shape after steaming.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding a softer, lighter crumb.
Minced beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Stoned raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour and helps preserve the pudding.

The step that matters

Steam the pudding for 4 hours. Steaming gently and steadily cooks the eggs and starch through without drying the pudding. Letting the water boil dry or cooking too fast can leave the pudding uneven or dense.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, apple, beef, flour, bread, lemon, orange):

  1. Cranberryfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, apple, beef, flour, bread, lemon, orange. 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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