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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, currants, suet, citron, eggs, bread, brandy, syrup, sugar, and flour.

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 ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Combine raisins, currants, suet, citron, eggs, grated bread, brandy, syrup, sugar, and flour in a large bowl. Mix well until all ingredients are combined.

  2. Butter a cloth and dredge it with flour, then place the mixture in the center and tie it securely to form a ball.

Boil and serve

  1. Boil the pudding in a pot of water for three hours, placing a plate under it to prevent burning.

  2. Carefully remove the pudding from the cloth while hot and serve with burning brandy and hard 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. Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  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 help it set as it cooks.
Suet
Adds richness and fat that keeps the pudding moist.
Grated bread
Soaks up liquid and lightens the dense fruit mixture.
Flour
Adds body and helps give the pudding a firm structure.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the tart dried fruit.
Raisins
Provide concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout.

The step that matters

Tying the cloth. The cloth must be floured and tied snugly so the pudding keeps its shape while boiling. If it is loose, water can soak in and the pudding becomes soggy and falls apart.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Apricotfits about as well
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, egg, bread, brandy, syrup, sugar, flour. 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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