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Dessert

Plum Puddestg

A dense, sweet pudding made with bread, milk, raisins, currants, citron, suet, sugar, spices, wine, brandy, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 Puddestg

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Soak the bread in the boiled milk until soft.

Mix and bake

  1. In a large bowl, combine the soaked bread, raisins, currants, citron, suet, sugar, nutmeg, mace, cinnamon, lemon peel, wine, brandy, and eggs. Mix well until all ingredients are combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish.

  3. Bake for 2 hours or until set.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  5. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Baker's bread
Soaked in milk, it absorbs liquid and gives the pudding its soft, bread-based body.
Eggs
Set during baking to bind the mixture and give it a firm, custard-like structure.
Milk
Soaks the bread and adds moisture that keeps the pudding tender as it bakes.
Suet
Adds richness and fat, giving the pudding a tender, moist texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps browning on the surface during baking.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy pockets of fruit throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs firm up as they heat, so the pudding needs enough time at 350°F to set through. Pulling it out too early leaves a wet, loose centre, while overbaking can make it dry and rubbery.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, raisin, currant, sugar, 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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