Skip to main content

Plain Plum Pudding

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Plain Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Soak the bread in water, then drain and squeeze until dry.

  2. In a bowl, mix the bread with molasses, baking soda, salt, milk, beaten eggs, ginger, chopped apple, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, suet, currants, raisins, and lemon peel.

  3. Steam or boil the mixture for 4 to 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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, molasses, milk, egg, ginger, clove, cinnamon):

  1. Figfits about as well
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, molasses, milk, egg, ginger, clove, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

More plum pudding recipes

English 165Christmas 156Sauce 71Eggless 34Baked 33Vegetable 19 See all 649 →

You might also like

Soft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesGingerbreadGingerbread25 recipesApple Bread PuddingApple Bread Pudding21 recipesApple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipes