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Dessert

Steamed Plum Pudding

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Steamed Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the flour, bread crumbs, sugar, milk, raisins, currants, molasses, suet, citron, orange peel, mace, cinnamon, and baking soda dissolved in a little hot water.

  2. Dredge the fruit in flour before adding it to the mixture.

  3. Beat the mixture well and pour it into a thoroughly buttered mold.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam the pudding for 5 to 6 hours.

  2. Turn it out, pour a little brandy over it, and light it just before serving.

  3. Serve with hard or liquid 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Raisin + molassestop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 structure as the pudding sets.
All-purpose flour
Provides the starch that gives the pudding its body and structure.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the pudding a light, tender crumb.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color and a rich, sweet flavor.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses to lighten the batter and help it rise.

The step that matters

Steaming for 5 to 6 hours. The pudding must steam gently and continuously so it cooks through evenly and stays moist. Letting the water boil dry or drop too low can leave the pudding dense or undercooked in the center.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, bread, sugar, milk, raisin, molasses, orange. 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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