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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed dessert made with bread crumbs, suet, molasses, eggs, sugar, raisins, currants, sweet milk, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine bread crumbs, suet, molasses, eggs, sugar, raisins, currants, and sweet milk.

  2. Add baking powder, salt, cinnamon, grated nutmeg, and flour, and mix well.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam the pudding for three 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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 richness and a moist, tender crumb as it melts during steaming.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure to the cooked pudding.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the pudding together.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lightens the pudding as it heats.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and add body to the soft interior.

The step that matters

Steam the pudding for three hours. Steam must stay steady and the mold must be sealed so water does not enter. Steady gentle heat cooks the batter through evenly, while water seeping in makes the pudding soggy and dense.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, molasses, egg, sugar, raisin, milk, cinnamon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, molasses, egg, sugar, raisin, milk, cinnamon. 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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