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Dessert

English Plum Pudding

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

English Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix the flour and milk together, then add the beaten eggs and stir well.

  2. Incorporate the stoned raisins, currants, sugar, spices, and brandy.

Steam and cook

  1. Grease and flour a tin mold, then pour the batter into it.

  2. Place the mold in a pot of boiling water, ensuring the water does not cover the top of the mold.

  3. Boil for 6 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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set firm during the long cooking.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich in texture.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy body throughout the pudding.
Currants
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy body throughout the pudding.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lifts the batter and gives a lighter crumb.

The step that matters

Keep the water below the top of the mold. If boiling water covers the mold, it can seep into the pudding and make it soggy and heavy. Keeping the top clear lets the pudding cook by steam, which sets it evenly while the sides cook in the water.

Swap the currant

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

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

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