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Dessert

Plum Pudding, Baked, Without Suet

A baked plum pudding made with stale bread crumbs, milk, butter, currants, raisins, candied peel, sugar, nutmeg, eggs, and optional brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,377 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓

Plum Pudding, Baked, Without Suet

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.

Make the batter

  1. Grate the stale bread finely and pour the boiling milk over it.

  2. While warm, beat in the butter until combined.

  3. Let the mixture cool, then add the currants, raisins, sugar, candied peel, nutmeg, and salt.

  4. Mix all ingredients smoothly together, then add the beaten eggs and brandy if using.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered mold and bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

  2. Alternatively, steam the pudding by placing the mold in a saucepan on an upside‑down plate, adding boiling water around it, and keeping it boiling until done.

  3. Turn the pudding out before serving and sift powdered sugar over it.

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

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Currant + raisintop 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).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Stale bread crumbs
Absorb the hot milk and give the pudding its body and crumb structure.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set on cooking to give the pudding structure.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender texture to the crumb.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture while helping the pudding brown.
Currants
Add chewy fruit pieces and sweetness throughout the pudding.
Raisins
Add chewy fruit pieces and sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Keep the batter smooth before adding the eggs. Beating the eggs in after the mixture has cooled helps prevent them from scrambling and keeps the batter evenly blended, so the pudding sets with a uniform texture.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, butter, raisin, sugar, nutmeg, egg. 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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