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Dessert

Boiled Plum Pudding

A boiled pudding made from bread crumbs, sugar, suet, raisins, currants, milk, eggs, spices, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg 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 ↓

Boiled Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Mix the dry ingredients together, ensuring the bread crumbs are finely grated or chopped.

  2. In a separate bowl, combine the milk, eggs, and brandy, then dissolve the salt and baking soda in this mixture.

  3. Combine the wet and dry ingredients thoroughly.

Cook

  1. Divide the mixture into four pudding cloths and tie securely.

  2. Boil the puddings for four hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with either a brandy sauce or a non-alcoholic 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 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. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

White bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and body that hold the pudding together.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm when cooked.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the richness of the suet.
Raisins
Add sweetness, chewy texture and moisture to the pudding.
Milk
Adds moisture so the mixture softens and combines smoothly.

The step that matters

Tie the pudding cloths securely. If the cloth is loose or poorly sealed, boiling water can seep in and make the pudding soggy and waterlogged. A tight seal keeps the water out, and the pudding can still swell a little as it steams.

Swap the currant

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

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

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