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Dessert

Thanksgiving Plum-pudding

A baked plum pudding made with grated bread, raisins, butter, milk, eggs, sugar, wine, rose-water, brandy, baking soda, nutmegs, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Thanksgiving Plum-pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Butter a dish and cover the bottom with grated bread.

  2. Layer raisins and small lumps of butter alternately until the dish is two-thirds full.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, beat together milk, eggs, sugar, wine, rose-water, brandy, baking soda, nutmegs, and salt.

  2. Pour the custard mixture over the bread and raisins.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for 2 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  5. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard and give the pudding its structure as they cook.
Baker's bread
Soaks up the custard and gives the pudding its body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, adding moisture and softness.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, keeping the pudding tender.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and aids browning as the pudding bakes.

The step that matters

Pour the custard mixture over the bread and raisins. The bread must be evenly soaked so it absorbs the liquid. Dry pockets stay dense and can bake unevenly, while overly wet areas may not set firmly.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, milk, egg, sugar, wine, rose. 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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