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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A baked pudding made with breadcrumbs, suet, eggs, raisins, currants, almonds, citrus peel, brown sugar, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Finely mince the suet and mix it with the breadcrumbs.

  2. Add the stoned and chopped raisins, finely cut peel, washed and dried currants, and salt.

  3. Moisten the mixture with the well-beaten eggs, then add the brandy.

Cook

  1. Grease a mold or basin and pour in the mixture.

  2. Boil for at least 6 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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Brandy + curranttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 moisture and structure as they set during cooking.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb the liquids and give the pudding a soft, cohesive body.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Muscatel raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Currants
Add concentrated fruit flavor and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor to the pudding.

The step that matters

Boil for at least 6 hours. The pudding must cook long and steadily so the eggs and breadcrumbs set fully and the dense mixture heats through evenly. Cooking too briefly leaves it wet and under-set in the centre.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, raisin, brandy, almond, lemon, orange, sugar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, raisin, brandy, almond, lemon, orange, sugar. 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 →

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