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Dessert

English Plum Pudding

A rich, spiced plum pudding made with flour, suet, dried fruit, molasses, milk, eggs, sugar, brandy, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

English Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the flour, suet, raisins, currants, citron, and mixed spices.

  2. In another bowl, combine the milk, molasses, eggs, sugar, brandy, and salt.

  3. Stir both mixtures together until well combined.

Wrap and boil

  1. Prepare the pudding mixture the night before and tie it up in 4 or 5 pudding cloths.

  2. Boil the pudding for 6 hours without interruption.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Suet
Adds richness and a moist, tender texture as it melts during cooking.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm while it cooks.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the pudding its browned, rich flavour.
Black molasses
Adds deep flavour, colour and moisture to the pudding.

The step that matters

Boil the pudding for 6 hours without interruption. Long, steady boiling cooks the dense mixture through evenly. Letting the water stop boiling or drop too low can leave the centre heavy and undercooked.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, raisin, cinnamon, mace, nutmeg, clove, milk):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, raisin, cinnamon, mace, nutmeg, clove, 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.

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