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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed dessert made with suet, crackers, sugar, citron, raisins, eggs, brandy, wine, milk, flour, spices, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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

Make the pudding

  1. Combine suet, crushed crackers, sugar, citron, raisins, eggs, brandy and wine mixture, milk, flour, mixed spices, and salt in a large bowl, and mix well until all ingredients are combined.

  2. Divide the mixture into small puddings.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam the puddings for 5 hours.

  2. Steam for an additional hour before serving.

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. Brandy + winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

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

  3. Coffee + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

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

  5. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 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

Suet
Adds fat and richness, keeping the pudding moist and tender as it steams.
Crackers
Crushed crackers provide the bulk and body that hold the pudding together.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm during steaming.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and contributes to a rich, deep flavor.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.
Flour
Thickens the mixture slightly and gives the pudding more structure.

The step that matters

Steaming the puddings. Steaming needs steady, gentle heat over the full long time so the eggs set and the suet melts evenly. Letting the water boil dry or drop too low can leave the puddings uneven or underdone in the center.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, coffee, brandy, wine, milk, flour):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Peachfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, coffee, brandy, wine, milk, 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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