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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with sugar, molasses, suet, milk, eggs, spices, raisins, currants, flour, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix together sugar, molasses, suet, milk, and eggs.

  2. In a separate bowl, combine baking soda, ginger, cloves, raisins, currants, and flour.

  3. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, then stir until well combined.

Finish the batter

  1. Dissolve the salt in water.

  2. Add the dissolved salt to the mixture.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam the pudding for 3 hours.

  3. Serve with a wine sauce.

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. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + raisintop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  4. Ginger + raisintop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,242 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Builds the structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help set the pudding's structure as it cooks.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding rich and tender.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and a dark color.
Baking soda
Reacts to form gas bubbles that lighten the pudding.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps form a smooth batter.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Adding the dry ingredients a little at a time and stirring until combined keeps the batter smooth and prevents pockets of flour or baking soda, which would give uneven texture and rising.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, molasses, milk, egg, ginger, clove, raisin):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, molasses, milk, egg, ginger, clove, raisin. 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.

More plum pudding recipes

English 165Christmas 156Sauce 71Eggless 34Baked 33Vegetable 19 See all 649 →

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