Name: Carrot Plum Pudding
Ingredients: 1 lb grated carrots; ½ lb flour; ½ lb bread crumbs; ½ lb sugar; ⅓ lb raisins; ½ lb currants; 1 tablespoon salt; ½ teaspoon mixed spice; ½ lb finely chopped suet; milk or water as needed

Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

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.

Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,180 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Carrot + flourtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,029 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Grated carrots: Adds moisture and natural sweetness to the dense pudding.
Flour: Provides structure as the mixture sets during cooking.
Bread crumbs: Absorb liquid and keep the pudding soft rather than heavy.
Suet: Adds fat that makes the pudding moist and tender.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and balances the savoury spices.
Raisins: Add sweetness and a chewy texture throughout.

The step that matters

Boil for the full time. Boiling for 2 hours or longer lets heat fully penetrate the dense mixture, cooking the flour and crumbs and setting the suet. Stopping early can leave the centre wet, heavy and under-set.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, flour, bread, sugar, raisin, milk):

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Coconutfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, flour, bread, sugar, raisin, 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.

Carrot Plum Pudding