Skip to main content
Dessert

An Economical Plum Pudding

A dense, sweet pudding made from soda crackers, raisins, eggs, milk, and sugar, topped with a buttery sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

An Economical Plum Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Assemble the pudding

  1. Soak the soda crackers in milk until very soft.

  2. Butter a baking dish.

  3. Layer the soaked crackers and seeded raisins, repeating until all ingredients are used.

  4. Beat the eggs with the light brown sugar and salt, then add the milk.

  5. Pour the mixture over the layered crackers and raisins.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for three hours.

Make the sauce

  1. Cream together the butter and sugar for the sauce.

  2. Add the egg yolk.

  3. Beat until light.

  4. Boil the water, then stir in the dissolved corn starch.

  5. Add the beaten egg white to the sauce mixture.

  6. Stir briskly.

  7. Keep the sauce warm without cooking.

  8. Add brandy or sherry.

  9. Add nutmeg just before serving.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the custard and set it firm as it bakes.
Soda crackers
Soak up the milk and form the soft, bready body of the pudding.
Light brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a molasses flavour, and keeps the custard moist.
Milk
Supplies the liquid that softens the crackers and forms the custard with the eggs.
Seeded raisins
Add pockets of sweetness and chewy texture between the cracker layers.
Corn starch
Thickens the sauce when heated in water.

The step that matters

Keep the sauce warm without cooking. The sauce contains egg, which can curdle or scramble if it gets too hot. Gentle warmth keeps it smooth while the starch and egg stay silky.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, egg, sugar, sauce, corn, brandy):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, egg, sugar, sauce, corn, brandy. 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 →

You might also like

Corn CakeCorn Cake90 recipesCorn Starch CakeCorn Starch Cake89 recipesBrandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipesCorn CakesCorn Cakes22 recipes