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Dessert

Christmas Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, dried fruit, flour, milk, eggs, spices, and citrus.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour 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

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large bowl, combine the suet, raisins, currants, flour, bread crumbs, milk, eggs, nutmeg, citron, lemon peel, and ginger.

  2. Mix until well combined, adding enough milk to achieve a thick consistency.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a pudding mold or heatproof bowl.

  4. Cover tightly and boil for at least 5 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.

  1. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds richness and fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender as it cooks.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together after steaming.
Bread crumbs
Soaks up liquid and helps give the pudding a light, soft body.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm as it cooks.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and natural sweetness.
Milk
Moistens the dry ingredients and adjusts the mixture to a thick consistency.

The step that matters

Cover tightly and boil for at least 5 hours. A tight cover traps steam so the pudding cooks gently and stays moist. If the seal is loose or the water boils down, the pudding can dry out and the water level must be kept up during the long cooking.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, flour, bread, milk, egg, nutmeg, lemon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, flour, bread, milk, egg, nutmeg, lemon. 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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