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Dessert

Sultana Plum Pudding

A fruit pudding made with raisins, dried apples, peaches, figs, dates, bananas, prunes, nuts, and spices, set in a mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Sultana Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. In a separate pot, boil the raisins, dried apples, dried peaches, figs, dates, and bananas for 30 minutes.

  2. In another pot, boil the prunes with the stick of cinnamon for 2 hours.

  3. In a third pot, boil the tapioca in water until clear.

Combine and set

  1. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl, adding the nuts, lemon peel, and citron.

  2. Allow the mixture to boil for 1 hour over low heat.

  3. Wet a mold. Pour the mixture into the mold. Let it cool and set.

Serve

  1. To serve, place on a layer of flaked rice or tapioca soaked in orange or pineapple juice.

  2. Before serving, pour a little grape brandy over each dish and light it.

  3. Serve with whipped cream flavored with lemon.

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

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

  2. Apple + bananatop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together435 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Fig + bananatop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together104 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. Fig + datestop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together318 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  5. Peach + figtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together45 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tapioca
Thickens the mixture as it cooks and helps it set firm when cooled.
Prunes
Add dense sweetness and moisture, and help bind the fruit together.
Dried apples
Contribute body, mild sweetness and chewy texture to the pudding.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Bananas
Add moisture, sweetness and soft body to the fruit mixture.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool and set. Tapioca thickens as it cools, so the pudding must rest undisturbed in the mold before unmolding or it may stay loose and fall apart.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, apple, peach, fig, dates, banana, cinnamon):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Walnutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, apple, peach, fig, dates, banana, 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.

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