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Dessert

Delicate Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with apples, raisins, currants, suet, molasses, bread, egg, spices, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,180 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, creamy. The science ↓

Delicate Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the chopped apples, raisins, currants, suet, molasses, grated bread, egg, mixed spices, and baking soda in a large bowl.

  2. Mix until the batter is just moist.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a pudding mold and steam for 2½ hours.

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

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

  2. Apple + curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Raisin + molassestop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Apple + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,920 recipes

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

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and gives it a rich, tender texture.
Grated bread
Provides body and soaks up liquid, giving the pudding its crumb.
Egg
Binds the ingredients together and helps set the pudding as it cooks.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deep, dark flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lightens the batter.
Apples
Add moisture and fruity sweetness that carries through the steamed pudding.

The step that matters

Steaming the pudding for 2½ hours. Steam cooks the batter gently and evenly, setting the egg and bread into a moist, cohesive pudding. Cooking it too briefly leaves the centre wet and loose.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, currant, molasses, bread, egg):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Datesfits about as well
  3. Applethe original
  4. Vanillafits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, currant, molasses, bread, egg. 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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