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Dessert

English or Christmas Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with bread crumbs, currants, suet, eggs, sugar, spices, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

English or Christmas Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Mix all ingredients in the order given.

  2. Boil in a buttered mold or floured pudding cloth for 8 hours, ensuring the water remains boiling.

Serve

  1. When ready to serve, plunge the pudding into boiling water and cook for an additional 2 hours.

  2. Decorate with a sprig of holly, pour 2 tablespoons of brandy over it, and serve flaming.

  3. Serve with English 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. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 help set the pudding structure as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Provide body and absorb moisture so the pudding holds together.
Suet
Adds fat that gives a rich, moist texture once steamed.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and contributes to the pudding's color and flavor.
Currants
Add fruit sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Flour
Adds starch that helps give the pudding a firm, sliceable body.

The step that matters

Keeping the water boiling during the 8-hour boil. A steady boil keeps the pudding cooking evenly and steaming. If the water drops, the pudding cooks unevenly and can turn heavy and soggy.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, flour, almond, nutmeg, lemon, sugar, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, flour, almond, nutmeg, lemon, sugar, egg. 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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