Name: Plain Plum Pudding
Ingredients: ½ pound raisins, pitted; ½ pound currants, cleaned; ½ pound beef suet, finely chopped; 1 pound bread crumbs; a few bitter and sweet almonds, pounded; a little candied peel, shredded; milk, as needed

Why it works: Raisin and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,781 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

Plain Plum Pudding

Ingredients

½ pound raisins, pitted
½ pound currants, cleaned
½ pound beef suet, finely chopped
1 pound bread crumbs
a few bitter and sweet almonds, pounded
a little candied peel, shredded
milk, as needed

Directions

Prepare

Stir the raisins and clean the currants well.
Chop the beef suet finely and grate the bread crumbs.
Pound the almonds and shred the candied peel.

Mix and boil

Mix all ingredients thoroughly and moisten with milk.
Put the mixture into one large mold or three small molds.
Boil the large mold for 4 to 5 hours and the small molds for 3 hours.

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.

Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,781 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,180 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,759 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs: Absorb the milk and give the pudding its body and structure.
Beef suet: Adds fat and richness, keeping the pudding moist and tender as it cooks.
Raisins: Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Currants: Add tart, concentrated fruit flavour and chew to the pudding.
Almonds: Add nutty aroma and a rich, slightly bitter-sweet flavour.

The step that matters

Boil for the stated time. Long, steady boiling cooks the dense, moist mixture through; boiling too briefly leaves the centre raw and heavy, while the larger mold needs the longer time.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, beef, bread, almond, milk):

Figfits better
Vanillafits better
Coconutfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, beef, bread, almond, milk. 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 165 Christmas 156 Sauce 71 Eggless 34 Baked 33 Vegetable 19 See all 649 →

Bread Pudding153 recipes

Soft Ginger Bread85 recipes

Orange Potato Bread80 recipes

Red Currant Jelly65 recipes

Like knowing why a recipe works?

The free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.

Plain Plum Pudding