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Dessert

Plain Plum Pudding

A sweet pudding made with molasses, milk, butter, spices, raisins, currants, and citron, boiled in a mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Plain Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix together molasses, sweet milk, and butter until well combined.

  2. Add grated nutmeg, allspice, cloves, and baking soda; stir until smooth.

  3. Fold in raisins, currants, and citron until evenly distributed.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Boil for one hour, ensuring the water level remains consistent.

  3. Serve warm with wine sauce.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  5. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Adds dark sweetness, moisture and a rich, deep flavor to the pudding.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, moist crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.
Currants
Add small chewy bursts of tart fruitiness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Keep the water level consistent while boiling. Steaming a pudding in a mold needs steady, even heat. If the water drops and the mold is exposed, the pudding can dry out and cook unevenly.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, milk, butter, nutmeg, allspice, clove, raisin):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, milk, butter, nutmeg, allspice, clove, raisin. 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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