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Dessert

English Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with dried fruit, suet, flour, spices, eggs, milk, vanilla, brandy, and ale.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and biscuit match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 388 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

English Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Combine raisins, currants, candied lemon peel, candied citron, almonds, suet, flour, biscuit powder, sugar, nutmeg, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl.

  2. Heat milk with vanilla pod in a saucepan until soft.

  3. Remove the pod, mince it, and mix it back into the milk.

  4. Add the milk mixture to the dry ingredients and stir well.

  5. Incorporate the beaten egg yolks, then the beaten egg whites gently.

  6. Stir in the brandy just before pouring the mixture into a basin or mold.

Boil and serve

  1. Boil the pudding for 8 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. Almond + biscuittop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together388 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + biscuittop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together889 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add lightness and structure when the whites are folded in.
All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and structure that hold the dense fruit and suet together.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the pudding brown and deepen in flavor.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter's acidity to help it rise and lighten.

The step that matters

Incorporating the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air that gives lift, so they should be folded in gently. Vigorous stirring knocks the air out and leaves a dense pudding.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, lemon, almond, beef, flour, biscuit, sugar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, lemon, almond, beef, flour, biscuit, sugar. 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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