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Dessert

English Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, currants, suet, flour, and spices, flavored with brandy and candied orange peel.

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 ↓

English Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix all dry ingredients together in a large bowl.

  2. Beat the eggs, then add them to the brandy and mix thoroughly.

  3. Combine the egg mixture with the dry ingredients and mix well.

Cook

  1. Transfer the mixture to a pudding cloth or mold.

  2. Boil for 6 hours in a large pot of water.

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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  3. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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 firm as it cooks.
Suet
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the pudding tender during long steaming.
Flour
Provides structure so the pudding holds its shape when cooked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and lighten the dense mixture, adding body.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the pudding a darker colour.

The step that matters

Boil for 6 hours in a large pot of water. The pudding must cook for the full time in steadily boiling water so the eggs and starches set through. Too little heat or time leaves it wet and underdone.

Swap the currant

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

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

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

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