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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, currants, sultanas, sugar, breadcrumbs, suet, mixed peel, lemon rind, spices, almonds, brandy, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.

  2. Moisten the mixture with the brandy and well-beaten eggs.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a pudding cloth or mold.

  4. Boil for about 6 hours in a large pot of water.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Nutmeg + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture together and add structure as the pudding sets.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the liquid and give the pudding a soft, cake-like body.
Chopped suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the pudding soft and moist.
Muscatel raisins
Provide concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout.

The step that matters

Boil for about 6 hours in a large pot of water. The pudding must stay submerged and steadily simmering for the full time. Long, gentle steaming cooks the eggs and crumbs through and sets the dense texture, while water that drops below simmering can leave it heavy or undercooked.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, sugar, bread, lemon, nutmeg, cinnamon, almond):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, sugar, bread, lemon, nutmeg, cinnamon, almond. 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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