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Dessert

Old English Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, bread crumbs, sugar, flour, currants, raisins, candied peel, eggs, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Old English Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dry ingredients

  1. Ensure the bread is dry.

  2. Rub the dry bread through a colander.

  3. Mix the suet, bread crumbs, and sugar together.

  4. Add the flour, currants, raisins, and finely shredded candied peel.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs and mix them with the milk.

  2. Add the egg mixture to the dry mixture.

Steam and serve

  1. Fill several small basins with the mixture.

  2. Tie a cloth over the tops of the basins.

  3. Boil the basins in a wash boiler for 10 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  3. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Raisin + orangetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 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

Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Soak up liquid and give the pudding body and a tender structure.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm during long cooking.
Flour
Provides the main structure so the pudding holds its shape.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the pudding brown slightly as it cooks.
Milk
Adds moisture that hydrates the flour and bread for a soft texture.

The step that matters

Boil the basins for 10 hours. Long, steady boiling cooks the pudding through and sets the eggs and starch. Water must be kept topped up so the basins stay submerged and the pudding does not dry out or scorch.

Swap the currant

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

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

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