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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, raisins, orange peel, spices, brandy, and eggs, wrapped in a buttered napkin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit and suet

  1. Wash the raisins in lukewarm water.

  2. Place them in a bowl with the chopped peel.

  3. Steep in a little brandy.

  4. Chop the suet very fine with one spoonful of flour.

Mix and shape

  1. Mix the suet with bread crumbs, brown sugar, and eggs.

  2. Add the raisins, peel, remaining brandy, salt, nutmeg, ginger, and cream, mixing well.

  3. Spread the mixture in a large buttered napkin.

  4. Fold the corners and tie to form a round shape.

Boil and serve

  1. Plunge the pudding into a saucepan of boiling water.

  2. Let it boil for at least four hours.

  3. Remove the pudding.

  4. Let it drain.

  5. Carefully turn it out onto a dish, removing the napkin.

  6. Sprinkle with a little sauce.

  7. Optionally light a match to the pudding when serving.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Orange + gingertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,833 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef suet
Provides fat that keeps the pudding rich and moist as it cooks.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy moisture throughout the pudding.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together so it holds its shape when boiled.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding a soft, light body.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a deeper, molasses-like flavor.
Brandy or rum
Adds aroma and flavor that deepens as the fruit steeps.

The step that matters

Boil for at least four hours. The pudding must stay submerged in steadily boiling water so heat reaches the center evenly. If the water drops below a boil or the pudding is not fully covered, parts of it will cook unevenly and turn out dense or wet.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, orange, nutmeg, ginger, lemon, brandy, cream):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Blackberryfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, orange, nutmeg, ginger, lemon, brandy, cream. 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.

More plum pudding recipes

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

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