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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, sugar, stale bread, raisins, currants, milk, brandy, nutmeg, cinnamon, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Plum Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the chopped suet, sugar, grated stale bread, raisins, and currants.

  2. Add the milk, brandy, grated nutmeg, cinnamon, and mace. Mix well.

  3. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

Steam and serve

  1. Cover the mold with a cloth and tie securely.

  2. Place the mold in a pot of boiling water, ensuring the water covers the mold.

  3. Boil for double the time it would take to bake, turning occasionally.

  4. Serve immediately after cooking.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

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

  4. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Stale bread
Soaks up the milk and brandy to give the pudding body and a soft crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps it brown slightly on the surface.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Currants
Add small pockets of tart fruit flavour and chewy texture.
Milk
Moistens the bread and binds the mixture into a cohesive batter.

The step that matters

Keeping the mold fully submerged while boiling. If the water drops below the mold's level, the exposed part cooks unevenly and dries out. Steady, gentle boiling with the mold covered gives even heat and a moist, cohesive pudding.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, bread, raisin, milk, brandy, nutmeg, cinnamon. 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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