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Dessert

English Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, currants, suet, sugar, flour, breadcrumbs, mixed peel, spices, eggs, brandy, and water.

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

English Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the stoned raisins, currants, beef suet, sugar, sifted flour, bread crumbs, mixed peel, and mixed spices.

  2. In another bowl, beat the eggs and add them to the dry mixture. Pour in the brandy and add enough water to create a stiff batter.

Boil and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a pudding cloth or mold and secure it tightly.

  2. Boil the pudding in water for six 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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  4. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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 add structure as they set during cooking.
Beef suet
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the pudding tender as it steams.
Sifted flour
Provides the main structure that holds the dense pudding together.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and lighten the texture of the dense mixture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the fruit taste rich and caramel-like.

The step that matters

Securing the pudding cloth or mold. If the cloth or mold is not sealed tightly, water can seep into the pudding during the long boil, making it soggy and diluting its flavour.

Swap the currant

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

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

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

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