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Dessert

Christmas Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, currants, candied citrus, nutmeg, eggs, milk, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Christmas Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the muscatel raisins, currants, candied lemon and citron, and grated nutmeg thoroughly.

  2. Add the eggs and enough milk to moisten the mixture without making it heavy.

Cook

  1. Tie the mixture in a well-floured pudding cloth.

  2. Boil for 5 to 6 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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Raisin + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Raisin + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the fruit mixture together and help give the pudding its set structure.
Muscatel raisins
Provide sweetness, moisture and chewy texture to the pudding.
Currants
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Milk
Moistens the mixture so the pudding is tender rather than heavy.

The step that matters

Keep the cloth well floured and the mixture moist but not heavy. A well-floured cloth forms a protective skin so the pudding does not stick or break apart while boiling. Adding just enough milk keeps the batter light, since too much liquid makes a dense, soggy pudding.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, lemon, nutmeg, egg, 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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