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Dessert

Baked Plum-pudding

A baked pudding made with suet, raisins, currants, candied fruit, flour, and spices, finished with brandy and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Baked Plum-pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Mix the batter

  1. Mix suet, raisins, currants, sugar, flour, baking powder, salt, candied citron, lemon peel, orange peel, and grated nutmeg in a large bowl.

  2. Quickly mix in brandy, egg, and enough milk to create a thick batter.

  3. Pour the mixture into a buttered pudding mold.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 2 hours.

  2. Dust with powdered sugar before serving and accompany with rum or brandy sauce.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the structure of the pudding as it bakes.
Suet
Adds richness and fat that keeps the pudding moist.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps it set as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the pudding rises and lightens.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy moisture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Quickly mix in brandy, egg, and milk. Overmixing once flour is combined develops gluten, making the pudding tough and dense. Mix just until the batter comes together, then pour it into the mold promptly so the baking powder's rising power is not lost.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, sugar, flour, lemon, orange, nutmeg, 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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