Skip to main content
Dessert

New England Plum Pudding

A steamed plum pudding made with suet, bread crumbs, sugar, dried fruit, spices, eggs, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

New England Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Clean, wash, and dry the currants, then stone and chop the raisins.

  2. Rub the dried fruit with a cloth to remove any remaining stalks.

Mix and mold

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

  2. Beat the eggs until frothy, then add the brandy and pour over the dry ingredients, mixing thoroughly.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a large, well-buttered mold.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam for 6 hours.

  2. Serve with rum, hard sauce, brandy sauce, or vanilla ice cream.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Stale bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding a light, tender body.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together and add structure as the pudding sets.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a deep, molasses-like flavor.
Flour
Provides structure so the pudding holds its shape when unmolded.
Currants
Add concentrated sweetness, moisture, and chewy texture throughout.

The step that matters

Steam for 6 hours. Steaming gently and steadily cooks the pudding through without drying it out. Water must be kept at a steady simmer so the pudding stays moist and sets evenly.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, lemon, flour, currant, raisin, nutmeg. 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.

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipes