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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, suet, currants, raisins, eggs, lemon peel, nutmeg, cream, sugar, salt, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, chopped suet, currants, raisins, eggs, grated lemon peel, grated nutmeg, cream, salt, sugar, and brandy until well combined.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a cloth and tie it securely.

  3. Boil the pudding in water for 2 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with a sauce made of wine, sugar, and butter.

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 + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the bulk and structure of the pudding as it sets.
Beef suet
Adds richness and fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm when cooked.
Currants
Provide concentrated sweetness and chewy fruit texture throughout.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy fruit texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Tying the cloth. The cloth must be tied securely but with room for the pudding to expand. If it is too tight the pudding can burst or cook unevenly, and if it is loose water can soak into the pudding while it boils.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, beef, raisin, egg, lemon, nutmeg, cream. 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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