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Dessert

Christmas Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, currants, bread crumbs, flour, suet, eggs, brandy, citrus peel, nutmeg, and ginger.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour 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

Prepare the mixture

  1. Chop the suet as finely as possible.

  2. Mix the chopped suet with the bread crumbs and flour.

  3. Add the washed and dried currants, sliced citron and orange peel, and stoned raisins. Mix in the grated nutmeg and ground ginger.

  4. Stir in the beaten eggs and brandy until well combined.

Cook and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a buttered mold and tie it tightly.

  2. Boil the pudding for 6 hours.

  3. To serve, reboil in a saucepan of boiling water for 2 to 2½ hours if made in advance.

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 + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  4. Bread + beeftop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

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

  5. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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 boiling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding a soft, tender body.
Beef suet
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the pudding tender during long cooking.
Flour
Adds body and helps the mixture hold together.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture.

The step that matters

Tie the mold tightly. A loose cover lets boiling water seep into the pudding, making it soggy and heavy. A snug seal keeps the steam contained so the pudding cooks evenly over the long boil.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, currant, bread, flour, beef, egg, brandy):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Orangethe original

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

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