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Christmas Pudding

A traditional British Christmas pudding made with bread crumbs, suet, currants, raisins, candied fruit, spices, brandy, wine, lemon, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 ↓

Christmas Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub the bread crumbs through a colander.

  2. In a large bowl, mix the bread crumbs, flour, suet, sugar, currants, and raisins.

  3. Add the candied citron, orange peel, lemon peel, grated nutmeg, mace, cinnamon, pounded cloves, powdered ginger, and chopped lemon peel. Mix well.

Make the batter

  1. Stir in the brandy, white wine, and lemon juice. Mix thoroughly.

  2. Gradually add the beaten eggs and mix until combined.

Boil and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a pudding mold and boil for 5 hours.

  2. When serving, sift sugar over the top.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  5. Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and body that hold the pudding together.
Suet
Adds richness and a moist, tender texture as it melts during cooking.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm as it cooks.
Currants
Add fruitiness and sweetness throughout the pudding.
Raisins
Add chewy sweetness and concentrated fruit flavour.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour while contributing moisture to the mixture.

The step that matters

Gradually add the beaten eggs. Adding eggs slowly and mixing until combined keeps the batter smooth and evenly bound, so the eggs disperse rather than clumping before the pudding sets during boiling.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, flour, sugar, raisin, orange, lemon, 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.

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