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Dessert

English Plum Pudding

A steamed dessert made with bread crumbs, suet, dried fruit, spices, wine, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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 ↓

English Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Soak the stale bread crumbs in 1 cup of hot milk until cold.

  2. Add the sugar and beaten egg yolks, then mix in nutmeg, cinnamon, mace, ground cloves, and salt.

  3. Finely chop and cream the beef suet, then add it to the mixture along with the floured raisins, currants, chopped figs, and citron.

  4. Stir in the wine and brandy, then fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

Steam

  1. Turn the mixture into a buttered mold and steam for 6 to 8 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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

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

  4. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks bind the batter and whites, beaten stiff and folded in, lighten its texture.
Stale bread crumbs
Soaked in hot milk, they absorb liquid and give the pudding its body.
Beef suet
Solid fat that melts during steaming, adding richness and a moist, tender crumb.
Raisins
Dried fruit that adds sweetness, chewy texture and concentrated fruit flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the pudding its soft, moist crumb.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour, and its alcohol helps keep the pudding moist.

The step that matters

Steaming the pudding. The mold must be buttered and sealed well so the pudding cooks gently in steam over the full 6 to 8 hours. Too little water or a loose lid lets it dry out or turn heavy and dense.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, wine, brandy, sugar, milk, nutmeg, cinnamon. 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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