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Dessert

English Plum Pudding

A steamed and boiled plum pudding made with raisins, currants, suet, flour, molasses, eggs, and milk.

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

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. In a saucepan, heat the molasses until hot, then dissolve the baking soda in it.

  2. In a large bowl, combine the raisins, currants, suet, flour, nutmeg, brown sugar, eggs, salt, and milk. Mix well, then pour the mixture into a cheesecloth bag that has been dipped in boiling water.

  3. Tie the bag near the end, leaving room for the pudding to swell.

Boil and dry

  1. Boil the pudding in water for 7 to 8 hours, ensuring the water remains boiling.

  2. Once done, carefully open the bag and place the pudding in a 350°F (175°C) oven to dry off.

Serve

  1. Serve with hard sauce or brandy sauce.

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 + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 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

Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich during long steaming.
All-purpose flour
Provides the starch structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Eggs
Bind the fruit and flour batter and help give the pudding its set structure.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to help the pudding rise and lighten.
Dark brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and deepens the color and flavor of the pudding.
New orleans molasses
Adds acidity, sweetness and dark color, and activates the baking soda.

The step that matters

Keep the water boiling for the full steaming time. If the water drops below a boil, the pudding cooks unevenly and can turn heavy and gummy. Long, steady steaming sets the batter through to the center.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, flour, molasses, nutmeg, sugar, egg, milk. 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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