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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, currants, suet, eggs, milk, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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

Prepare the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the raisins, currants, sugar, bread crumbs, flour, and suet.

  2. In another bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the milk, nutmeg, cinnamon, and salt.

  3. Pour the egg mixture into the dry ingredients and stir until well combined.

  4. Fold in the citron and lemon peel.

Steam and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a pudding mold.

  2. Cover the mold tightly.

  3. Boil for 5 hours, ensuring the water level remains consistent.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Bread + milktop 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 mixture and help it set firm as it cooks.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding rich and moist as it cooks.
Flour
Provides structure so the dense batter holds its shape when cooked.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and add body, giving the batter a softer texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps the eggs form a tender, cohesive batter.

The step that matters

Keeping the water level consistent while boiling. A long steam or boil needs steady water. If the level drops, the pudding is exposed, can dry out and cook unevenly, and the mold may scorch on the bottom.

Swap the currant

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

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

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