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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed plum pudding made with raisins, currants, candied peel, suet, flour, sugar, eggs, milk, spices, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour 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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the raisins, currants, candied orange, lemon, citron, beef suet, flour, moist sugar, eggs, milk, lemon rind, mustard, cinnamon, cloves, brandy, and salt thoroughly.

  2. Let the mixture sit for several hours before boiling.

Boil and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered mold and tie it up in a cloth.

  2. Boil the pudding for 4½ hours.

  3. Serve with a German custard sauce poured over it.

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 + flourtop 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. Raisin + curranttop 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. Raisin + sugartop 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it steams.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help set the pudding's texture as it cooks.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich during long boiling.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the pudding its dark, moist character.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy fruit texture throughout the pudding.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour that deepens as the mixture rests.

The step that matters

Boiling the pudding for 4½ hours. The pudding must boil steadily for the full time, because the long, gentle heat cooks the flour and eggs through and sets the dense batter. Too little time leaves it heavy or undercooked in the centre.

Swap the currant

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

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

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

More plum pudding recipes

English 165Christmas 156Sauce 71Eggless 34Baked 33Vegetable 19 See all 649 →

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