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Dessert

An English Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with eggs, flour, sugar, suet, milk, nutmeg, brandy, currants, and raisins.

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 ↓

An English Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs very light.

  2. Add the sifted flour and powdered sugar; mix until light.

  3. Stir in the finely shredded suet, milk, grated nutmeg, and brandy.

  4. Fold in the currants and raisins.

Boil

  1. Tie the mixture in a thick cloth and boil steadily for 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

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

  3. Brandy + curranttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Currant + raisintop 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 mixture and give it lift and structure as it cooks.
Flour
Provides the body that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich in texture.
Currants
Contribute sweetness, chew and moisture to the finished pudding.
Raisins
Contribute sweetness, chew and moisture to the finished pudding.

The step that matters

Boil steadily for the full 8 hours. The pudding is cooked entirely by the boiling water. If the water stops simmering or drops low, the batter cooks unevenly and can turn heavy or soggy, so the pot must be kept at a steady boil and topped up as needed.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, flour, sugar, milk, nutmeg, brandy, raisin):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, sugar, milk, nutmeg, brandy, 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.

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