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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A rich, fruit‑filled pudding baked with butter, sugar, and spices, served with a sweet sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 22 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 ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs separately, adding the whites last, and mix in the sweet milk.

  2. In a large pot, combine the bread crumbs with boiling milk to form a thick batter.

  3. Let the batter cool to lukewarm.

  4. Stir in ½ pound of butter and ½ pound of sugar into the batter.

  5. Add the beaten eggs, raisins, currants, citron, and spices, mixing well.

Bake and make the sauce

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered mold or dish.

  2. Bake at 300 °F (150 °C) for 2 hours.

  3. For the sauce, combine 3 beaten eggs, 1 cup of sugar, and ⅓ cup of milk in a saucepan, seasoning with lemon.

  4. Stir over low heat until thickened, but do not let it boil.

  5. Add 2 wine glasses of brandy or sherry wine.

Steam the pudding

  1. Alternatively, place the pudding in a scalded and floured cloth in a round‑bottomed bowl, tying it tightly.

  2. Drop the pudding into boiling water, ensuring it is fully covered.

  3. Replenish water as needed.

  4. Turn the pudding frequently.

  5. Dip it in cold water when done to prevent sticking.

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

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

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as the pudding sets.
Bread crumbs
Form the thick base that holds the batter together and gives body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for a tender, moist crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the pudding its flavor and moisture.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.
Currants
Add tart, fruity flavor and chewy texture through the batter.

The step that matters

Keep the sauce below a boil. Eggs thicken as they heat, but past a simmer they scramble and turn grainy. Gentle low heat gives a smooth, thickened sauce.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, bread, flour, raisin, 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 →

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