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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed dessert made from bread crumbs, sugar, flour, suet, currants, raisins, citron, eggs, spices, and brandy or wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Soak the bread crumbs in enough sweet milk to cover them.

  2. In a large bowl, combine the soaked bread crumbs, sugar, flour, suet, currants, raisins, citron, eggs, salt, cloves, mace, cinnamon, and brandy or wine. Mix well until all ingredients are combined.

Steam the pudding

  1. Transfer the mixture to a cloth-lined steamer.

  2. Steam for 3 to 4 hours, tying a strong cloth over the steamer.

  3. Do not remove the cloth until ready to serve.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

  5. Currant + macetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,791 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Soak up the milk and give the pudding a soft, tender body.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm during steaming.
Flour
Adds structure so the pudding holds its shape when cooked.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps browning and flavor development.

The step that matters

Keep the cloth tied and do not lift it during steaming. Opening the steamer lets steam escape and the temperature drop, so the pudding cooks unevenly and can turn dense or soggy. Keeping the cloth sealed holds steady heat and moisture through the 3 to 4 hours.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, sugar, flour, currant, raisin, egg, clove):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, flour, currant, raisin, egg, clove. 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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