Skip to main content
Dessert

Small and Cheap Plum Pudding

A suet-based pudding with raisins, currants, molasses, and spices, baked or steamed for three hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Small and Cheap Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine suet, raisins, currants, molasses, egg, flour, milk, baking soda, cloves, and cinnamon in a large bowl and mix until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a pudding mold.

  3. Boil or steam for 3 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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the dense pudding together as it cooks.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps set the pudding as it cooks.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich in texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acidity to lighten the pudding and aid rising.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the pudding.

The step that matters

Boil or steam for 3 hours. The pudding must cook gently and steadily for the full time so the centre sets through and the batter becomes tender. Letting the water boil dry or drop too low can leave the pudding undercooked or dense.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, molasses, egg, flour, milk, clove, cinnamon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, molasses, egg, flour, milk, clove, cinnamon. 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

Molasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesRed Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipes