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Dessert

Grandmother's Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with beef suet, molasses, milk, flour, eggs, spices, raisins, currants, and citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

Grandmother's Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the beef suet, molasses, and milk.

  2. Add the flour, eggs, baking powder, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, and salt. Mix well.

  3. Fold in the raisins, currants, and citron.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam for 2 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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

Beef suet
Adds richness and moisture, giving the pudding a tender, moist crumb as it steams.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set firm during steaming.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking so the pudding rises and lightens.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the batter.

The step that matters

Steam for 2 hours. Steaming must be gentle and steady so the pudding cooks through evenly and stays moist. If the water boils too hard or drops low, the pudding can turn out uneven or dense.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Allspicethe original
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, molasses, milk, flour, egg, cinnamon, clove. 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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