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Dessert

English Plum Pudding

A steamed plum pudding made with raisins, currants, citrus, suet, sugar, spices, eggs, and served with brandy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 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 ↓

English Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit and suet

  1. Cut the lemon and citron into thin slices.

  2. Chop the suet very fine.

  3. Remove all strings from the suet.

Mix and steam the pudding

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

  2. Combine all ingredients in the bowl. Mix well.

  3. Press the mixture smoothly into a pan.

  4. Cover tightly.

  5. Steam for 5 hours.

Make the brandy sauce and serve

  1. Cream together the butter and powdered sugar to make the brandy sauce.

  2. Add the lemon juice.

  3. Stir in the boiling water.

  4. Heat the sauce over the fire for 2 minutes until steaming hot.

  5. Quickly add the stiffened whites of 2 eggs. Beat hard.

  6. Remove from heat.

  7. Pour in the brandy.

  8. Serve.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds richness and moistness, melting during steaming to keep the pudding tender.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and, when whipped, lighten the sauce for a smooth texture.
Raisins
Provide chewy texture and natural sweetness throughout the pudding.
Bread crumbs
Give the pudding body and absorb moisture so it holds its shape.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a deep, caramel-like flavor to the pudding.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor to the sauce and pudding.

The step that matters

Adding the stiffened egg whites to the hot sauce. The sauce must be hot enough to cook the whites lightly but added quickly and beaten hard so they stay airy and do not collapse or scramble into lumps.

Swap the currant

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

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

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