Skip to main content
Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, bread crumbs, eggs, currants, raisins, citron, spices, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg 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

Mix the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine sugar, suet, bread crumbs, and egg yolks.

  2. Add allspice, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, and milk; mix well.

  3. Fold in currants, raisins, and citron.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gently fold into the mixture.

  5. Add baking powder and mix until just combined.

Steam the pudding

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Boil for 4 to 5 hours, ensuring the water level remains consistent.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks bind the batter and whites, beaten to stiff peaks, lighten its texture.
Dried bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and form the body of the pudding.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich.
Currants
Provide chewy pockets of fruit sweetness throughout the pudding.
Dried raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas that helps the pudding rise and become lighter.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stiff whites hold air that lightens the batter. Folding gently preserves that air; stirring vigorously deflates it, leaving a denser pudding.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Allspicethe original
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Marjoramfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, bread, egg, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, milk. 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 →

You might also like

Bread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipes