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Dessert

Plum Pudding Without Eggs

A steamed plum pudding made with carrots, suet, dried fruit, spices, and flour, without eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg 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 ↓

Plum Pudding Without Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Mix and sift

  1. Mix the ingredients in the order given.

  2. Dust the currants, citron, and raisins with flour.

  3. Sift the mixture together.

Steam

  1. Steam in a buttered mold for 3½ 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mashed carrots
Adds moisture and body, giving the pudding structure without eggs.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender as it steams.
Flour
Provides starch that sets the mixture and gives it body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps hold moisture in the pudding.
Raisins
Add sweetness and a chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Currants
Add sweetness and a chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Steaming the mold. Steam gives gentle, even heat. If the water boils dry or the pot is left uncovered, the heat becomes uneven, so the pudding can dry out on the outside or cook unevenly. Keep the water topped up and the lid sealed for the full time.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, sugar, flour, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, raisin):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, sugar, flour, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, raisin. 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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