Name: Plum Pudding
Ingredients: 1 cup suet; 3 cups bread crumbs; 1 cup brown sugar; 1 cup chopped raisins; 1 cup currants; 1 cup flour (for dredging the fruit); 1 teaspoon baking soda; ½ cup sour milk

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 ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

In a large bowl, combine the suet, bread crumbs, brown sugar, chopped raisins, currants, and flour.
Dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk and add it to the mixture. Mix well until all ingredients are combined.

Steam and serve

Transfer the mixture to a pudding mold and cover it.
Steam for 3 hours.
Serve warm with a sauce of your choice.

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.

Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,180 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Suet: Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Bread crumbs: Provides bulk and a soft, tender body to the pudding.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and a molasses flavor to the pudding.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Sour milk: Provides acidity to activate the baking soda and adds moisture.