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Dessert

Plum Pudding, Economical

A boiled plum pudding made with suet, flour, breadcrumbs, raisins, currants, sugar, lemon peel, nutmeg, eggs, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Plum Pudding, Economical

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. In a large bowl, mix the shredded suet, flour, bread crumbs, raisins, currants, sugar, lemon peel, and grated nutmeg thoroughly.

  2. Stir in the beaten eggs and enough milk to form a stiff paste.

Boil and serve

  1. Place the mixture into a floured cloth and tie the cloth loosely, allowing room for expansion.

  2. Submerge the cloth in a pan of boiling water and boil for 5 hours.

  3. Do not remove from the cloth until just before serving.

  4. Serve with sweet sauce in a tureen.

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 together and add structure as they set during boiling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the pudding a light, crumbly body.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the pudding as it cooks.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Leave room for expansion in the cloth. The pudding swells as it cooks and the starch gelatinises in boiling water. If the cloth is tied tightly, the pudding can burst or cook unevenly.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, bread, 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.

More plum pudding recipes

English 165Christmas 156Sauce 71Eggless 34Baked 33Vegetable 19 See all 649 →

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