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Dessert

English Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, dried fruit, spices, sugar, bread crumbs, eggs, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Mix flour with the chopped fruit.

  2. Add suet, lemon rind and juice, brandy, chopped apples, spices, brown sugar, and bread crumbs.

  3. Incorporate the beaten eggs. Mix well.

Fill and cover

  1. Turn the mixture into 2 buttered molds, filling them only halfway.

  2. Cover the pudding.

  3. If using a bag, wet and flour it. Fill the bag with the mixture and tie the bag securely.

Boil and serve

  1. Boil steadily for 4 hours, then for an additional 4 hours on the day of serving.

  2. Ensure the pudding is covered with water during cooking. Add more boiling water if necessary.

  3. Cook in boiling water as above.

  4. Decorate with whole blanched almonds.

  5. Pour warm brandy over the pudding. Light the pudding at the table.

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. Almond + raisintop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Fig + almondtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together519 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Fig + appletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together238 recipes

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

  5. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 set the pudding structure as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Add body and soak up liquid for a moist, tender crumb.
Suet
Adds richness and fat that keeps the pudding moist.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a deep, molasses-like flavour.
Raisins
Add sweetness, chew and concentrated fruit flavour.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour, and is lit at the table for serving.

The step that matters

Keep the pudding covered with boiling water. If the water drops below the pudding during the long boil, the exposed part dries out and cooks unevenly. Topping up with boiling water keeps the heat steady and the texture moist.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fig, almond, raisin, currant, flour, brandy, apple):

  1. Apricotfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fig, almond, raisin, currant, flour, brandy, apple. 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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