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Fried Plum Pudding

Fried plum pudding is a dish of sliced plum pudding fried in butter and served with a sauce of egg yolks, sugar, sherry, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,209 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Fried Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pudding

  1. Cut thick slices from the plum pudding.

  2. Fry the slices in butter until warmed through.

Make the sauce

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and mix in the sugar, sherry, and brandy.

  2. Pour the mixture into a saucepan and stir over heat until it thickens.

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. Sherry + brandytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Plum + sherrytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together58 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Plum + brandytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together168 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Plum pudding
Forms the main body of the dish, carrying the flavour and texture of the fried slices.
Butter
Fries the pudding slices, adding richness and golden browning to the outside.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they heat, giving it a smooth, custard-like body.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma to the sauce, balancing its sweetness.
Brandy
Adds aroma and warmth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir the egg yolk mixture over heat until it thickens. Egg yolks set when heated, but if they get too hot they can scramble and curdle. Stirring constantly over gentle heat keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the plum

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, sugar, sherry, brandy):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Plumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, sugar, sherry, brandy. 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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