Skip to main content
Dessert

Plum Pudding, Without Eggs

A steamed or boiled plum pudding made without eggs, using suet, flour, bread crumbs, currants, sugar, nutmeg, candied peel, milk, and optional brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Currant and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Plum Pudding, Without Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, mix the shredded suet, salt, flour, bread crumbs, currants, sugar, grated nutmeg, and candied peel.

  2. Stir in enough milk to form a stiff batter.

  3. If desired, add the brandy.

Cook

  1. Tie the mixture in a cloth and plunge it into boiling water.

  2. Boil for 4 hours or bake instead of boiling.

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. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Beef + milktop 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

Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Bulk and structure that soak up milk and hold the batter together.
Currants
Provide chewy pockets of sweetness throughout the pudding.
Flour
Helps thicken the batter so it holds its shape.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps browning when the pudding is baked.

The step that matters

Boil for 4 hours or bake instead of boiling. The long, steady cooking sets the batter into a firm, cohesive pudding. Too little heat or time leaves it dense, wet or crumbly in the centre.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, bread, sugar, nutmeg, milk, brandy. 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.

You might also like

Bread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipesBrandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipes