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Dessert

Steamed Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with crackers, raisins, sugar, spices, milk, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Steamed Plum Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Soak the rolled crackers in the water.

  2. Mix the sugar with the spices and salt.

  3. Add the sugar mixture to the soaked crackers and mix well.

  4. Stir in the milk.

Steam and bake

  1. Steam for 4 hours in an uncovered dish, stirring often to prevent the raisins from settling.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1 hour.

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Crackers
Soak to soften and thicken the mixture, giving the pudding its body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the pudding a tender, moist crumb.
Raisins
Add chewy pieces and sweetness throughout the pudding.
Milk
Provides moisture and liquid that sets the custardy texture as it cooks.

The step that matters

Stirring while steaming. Raisins are heavier than the batter and sink if left alone, so the pudding bakes unevenly with a dense bottom. Stirring often keeps the raisins evenly distributed through the batter while it steams.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinthe original
  4. Blueberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, 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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