Skip to main content

Rich Plum Pudding— No. I

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Rich Plum Pudding— No. I

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine raisins, currants, apples, orange peel, suet, beaten eggs, flour, bread crumbs, and sugar in a bowl.

  2. Mix well and let the mixture sit overnight.

  3. Three hours before serving, tie the mixture in a cloth or place in a buttered mold.

  4. Boil in water for three hours.

  5. Turn out and serve with brandy 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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Currant + appletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

Swap the orange

The recipe marks orange as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, currant, apple, beef, egg, flour, bread):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Plumfits better
  3. Cranberryfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, currant, apple, beef, egg, flour, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

More plum pudding recipes

English 165Christmas 156Sauce 71Eggless 34Baked 33Vegetable 19 See all 649 →

You might also like

Apple Bread PuddingApple Bread Pudding21 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesApple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipes