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Dessert

Half-batch Plum Pudding

A sweet, spiced pudding made with eggs, sugar, molasses, raisins, currants, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Half-batch Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C) or prepare a steamer.

Make the pudding

  1. In a large bowl, mix the eggs and sugar until well combined.

  2. Add the mace, cloves, molasses, raisins, citron, flour, soaked bread crumbs, cinnamon, wine or brandy, and currants; stir until fully incorporated.

  3. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold or dish.

Bake or steam

  1. Bake for about 2 to 3 hours or steam until set.

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. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and help the pudding set into a firm, sliceable structure.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the pudding moist and tender.
Flour
Provides the starch and structure that hold the dense pudding together.
Bread crumbs
Soaked in milk, they add moisture and a soft, tender crumb.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness, chewiness and body throughout the pudding.
Currants
Add tart, fruity flavor and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Bake or steam until set. Cooking long and gently lets the eggs and starches set the dense, fruit-packed batter without drying it out. Underbaking leaves it wet and collapsed in the centre, while overbaking dries and toughens it.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, clove, molasses, raisin, flour, bread. 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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