Why it works: Raisin and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,481 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Grandmother Cushing's Plum Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
In a large pot, combine milk, cracker crumbs, raisins, eggs, sugar, salt, and spices.
Steam
Steam the mixture for nine hours.
After one hour, remove from heat, stir thoroughly, and add some cold milk to make whey.
Return the pudding to the boiler and continue steaming.
Serve
Serve with sour sauce.
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.
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Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,155 recipes
Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the eggs and crumbs set into a custard.
- Cracker crumbs
- Absorb liquid and thicken the mixture into a firm, dense body.
- Eggs
- Coagulate when heated, helping the pudding set and hold together.
- Raisins
- Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness that balances the savoury spices.
The step that matters
Stirring thoroughly at one hour. During long steaming, heavy raisins and crumbs sink while the mixture is still thin. Stirring redistributes them so the pudding sets evenly throughout rather than settling into a dense layer at the bottom.
Swap the raisin
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Raisinthe original
- Lemonfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, 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.
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