Name: Christmas Plum Pudding, Without Eggs
Ingredients: ½ pound flour; 6 ounces raisins; 6 ounces currants; ¼ pound suet, minced; ¼ pound sugar; ¼ pound mashed carrots; ¼ pound mashed potatoes; 1 tablespoon syrup; 2 ounces candied peel

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 ↓

Christmas Plum Pudding, Without Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

In a bowl, combine the minced suet, flour, mashed carrots, raisins, and sugar.
Stir in the mashed potatoes, syrup, and candied peel.
Do not add any liquid to the mixture.

Cook the pudding

Tie the mixture loosely in a cloth to allow for swelling.
Boil the pudding for 4 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.

Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,107 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,842 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,180 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour: Provides the main structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Suet: Adds fat that gives the pudding a rich, moist texture.
Mashed potatoes: Adds body and moisture to the mixture in place of eggs.
Mashed carrots: Adds moisture and bulk, helping the pudding hold together without eggs.
Raisins: Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps give the pudding its flavour.

The step that matters

Tie the cloth loosely. The pudding swells as it cooks, so a loose cloth lets it expand. A tight cloth can restrict expansion and cause the pudding to burst or cook unevenly.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, raisin, sugar, carrot, potato, syrup):

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Orangefits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, raisin, sugar, carrot, potato, syrup. 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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Orange Potato Bread80 recipes

Red Currant Jelly65 recipes

Currant Ice Cream32 recipes

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Christmas Plum Pudding, Without Eggs