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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, currants, lemon, spices, bread crumbs, suet, and wine, served with a wine sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the raisins, currants, lemon juice and rind, nutmeg, salt, cinnamon, bread crumbs, brown sugar, eggs, suet, citron, brandy, and wine.

  2. Mix well until all ingredients are thoroughly combined.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a greased pudding mold.

Boil and serve

  1. Boil the pudding in a pot of water for 4 hours.

  2. Serve with a rich wine 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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  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. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

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 help give the pudding its set structure as they cook.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the liquids and add body, giving the pudding a soft, cohesive crumb.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich in texture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, along with a deep molasses flavor.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor, and its alcohol carries spice notes through the pudding.

The step that matters

Boil the pudding in a pot of water for 4 hours. The pudding must cook long and gently in simmering water so the eggs and crumbs set through without drying or cracking. Water that boils too hard or runs low can leave the texture uneven.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, lemon, nutmeg, cinnamon, bread, sugar, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, lemon, nutmeg, cinnamon, bread, sugar, egg. 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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