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Dessert

Christmas Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with bread crumbs, flour, suet, raisins, currants, sugar, candied citrus peel, nutmeg, lemon, salt, almonds, eggs, brandy, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 ↓

Christmas Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Mix

  1. Mix the bread crumbs, flour, beef suet, raisins, currants, sugar, candied lemon peel, candied citron peel, grated nutmeg, lemon juice, lemon rind, salt, and sliced almonds in a large bowl.

  2. Add the eggs and enough milk to moisten the mixture, ensuring it is stiff like paste.

Boil

  1. Transfer the mixture to a pudding cloth, tie it securely, and boil for 10 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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 structure as they set during cooking.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding its body and soft texture.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the pudding its dark color.
Raisins
Provide chewy sweetness and concentrated fruit flavor throughout.

The step that matters

Ensuring the mixture is stiff like paste. Adding too much milk makes the mixture loose, so it may not hold its shape in the cloth and can cook up soggy. Adding milk gradually until the mixture is stiff helps the pudding set firmly while boiling.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, flour, beef, raisin, sugar, lemon, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, flour, beef, raisin, sugar, lemon, nutmeg. 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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