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Dessert

Plum Pudding.

A baked plum pudding made with milk, bread crumbs, butter, brown sugar, eggs, raisins, currants, citron, nutmeg, and optional brandy.

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

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. Combine boiling milk with enough grated bread crumbs in a large bowl to form a thick batter.

  2. Let the mixture cool until lukewarm, then beat it well.

  3. Stir in the butter and brown sugar until fully combined.

  4. Add the beaten eggs, raisins, currants, sliced citron, grated nutmeg, and optional brandy or wine; mix well.

Bake or boil

  1. Pour the batter into a buttered mold or dish.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 300°F (150°C) for 2 hours.

  3. Alternatively, boil the pudding by placing it in a scalded and floured cloth in a round-bottomed bowl, leaving room for expansion.

  4. Tie the cloth tightly and drop it into boiling water, ensuring it is fully covered; replenish water as needed.

  5. Turn the pudding frequently while boiling; once done, dip it in cold water to prevent sticking.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, combine 3 beaten eggs, 1 cup sugar, and ½ cup milk seasoned with lemon in a saucepan.

  2. Stir over low heat until thickened, but do not let it boil; add ⅓ cup brandy or sherry wine.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  5. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set into a firm, sliceable pudding.
Bread crumbs
Soak up the hot milk to form the thick body of the batter.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender texture to the pudding.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a molasses-like depth of flavor.
Raisins
Provide chewy pockets of sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Do not let the sauce boil. Egg-thickened sauces curdle and turn grainy if they boil, because the egg proteins overcoprocess and seize. Stir over low heat until it coats a spoon.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, bread, butter, sugar, egg, raisin, 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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