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Dessert

Plum-pudding, Baked

A baked plum pudding made with eggs, sugar, milk, flour, suet, breadcrumbs, raisins, currants, citron, sherry, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Plum-pudding, Baked

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg yolks and sugar together until very light.

  2. Warm the milk and stir half of it into the yolks and sugar.

  3. Stir in the flour until smooth, then add the remaining milk.

  4. Mix in the suet, bread crumbs, salt, nutmeg, wine, and baking powder.

  5. Fold in the raisins, currants, and citron.

  6. Beat the egg whites with 1 tablespoon sugar until stiff, then gently fold them in.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a well‑buttered pudding pan.

  2. Place the pan in a larger pan of boiling water and bake for 1 hour at 400°F (200°C).

  3. Serve with a wine fruit or custard 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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

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

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whipped whites lighten it for a tender crumb.
Flour
Provides structure as it sets during baking, holding the pudding together.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the pudding rises and becomes lighter.
Beef suet
Adds richness and fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and soak up moisture, giving the pudding body and a soft texture.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Whites hold air only when whipped stiff; folding gently keeps that air in, so the pudding rises and stays light rather than dense.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Marjoramfits less well
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, milk, flour, beef, bread, sherry. 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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