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Dessert

Plum Pudding, Family

A steamed pudding made with eggs, milk, suet, raisins, currants, sugar, spices, and optional candied peel, almonds, brandy, and noyeau.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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, Family

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Beat the eggs thoroughly.

  2. Mix in ½ pint of milk and 1 teaspoon of salt.

  3. Stir in ½ pound of shredded beef suet, 1 pound of chopped raisins, 4 ounces of dried currants, 4 ounces of brown sugar, 1 grated nutmeg, and 1 ounce of candied peel.

  4. Add another ½ pint of milk and enough grated bread crumbs and flour to make a stiff paste.

  5. If desired, add ½ ounce of chopped almonds, more candied peel, and more currants.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the pudding in a cloth for quicker cooking or in a mold for better appearance.

  2. Cook for 4 to 5 hours.

  3. For sauce, stir in 1 glass of brandy and 2 teaspoons of noyeau.

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

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

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Milk + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and set into a firm, sliced pudding when cooked.
Beef suet
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the pudding tender as it cooks.
Bread crumbs and flour
Form the stiff paste that gives the pudding its body and holds the fruit.
Raisins
Provide sweetness, chewy texture and moisture throughout the pudding.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a deeper, molasses-like flavor.

The step that matters

Make the paste stiff before boiling. A stiff paste holds its shape and keeps the fruit suspended. If the batter is too loose, the pudding can break up or turn heavy and soggy during the long cook.

Swap the currant

The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, beef, raisin, sugar, nutmeg, bread):

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

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