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Dessert

Unrivalled Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, currants, suet, candied peel, spices, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Unrivalled Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit and dry ingredients

  1. Stone and cut up the raisins without chopping them.

  2. Wash and dry the currants.

  3. Cut the candied peel into thin slices.

  4. Mix all the dry ingredients together.

Mix the batter

  1. Beat the eggs well and strain them, then stir in the brandy.

  2. Thoroughly mix all ingredients together.

Boil and serve

  1. Butter a stout new cloth, tie it tightly, and flour it.

  2. Place the pudding in the cloth and boil for 6 to 8 hours.

  3. Serve with brandy sauce.

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. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 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

Eggs
Bind the mixture and give the pudding its set structure when cooked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding body and a soft, moist crumb.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Raisins
Provide sweetness, chewy texture and concentrated fruit flavour.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and molasses-like depth while helping keep the pudding moist.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour, and helps carry the spices through the mixture.

The step that matters

Tying the cloth tightly. A tightly tied, floured cloth keeps the pudding compact and stops water entering during the long boil, which would make it soggy and crumbly.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, sugar, bread, egg, lemon, 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.

More plum pudding recipes

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

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