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Dessert

Plum Pudding

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a large bowl, combine flour, beef suet, raisins, currants, and spices.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the milk.

  3. Combine the wet and dry ingredients thoroughly.

Boil

  1. Place the mixture in a cloth bag, ensuring there is no room for swelling.

  2. Tie the bag securely and boil in water for 4 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  3. Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the bulk and structure of the pudding as it sets.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich in texture.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm after boiling.
Milk
Adds moisture that hydrates the flour and loosens the batter.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Place the mixture in a cloth bag without room for swelling. Flour-based puddings expand as starches gelatinize and gases form during boiling. If the bag is packed too tightly or sealed without space, the pudding can burst or cook unevenly. Leaving room allows safe expansion.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, beef, raisin, egg, 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.

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