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Dessert

Christmas Plum Pudding

A traditional British dessert made with dried fruit, suet, flour, and spices, baked for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

Christmas Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and the remaining ingredients.

  3. Mix until the batter is thick; add more flour if needed.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil for 4 hours.

  2. Serve with brandy or wine sauce.

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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

  5. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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 rich and moist as it cooks.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help give the pudding its structure as it sets.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter together while it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and add body, giving the pudding a tender, soft crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps browning and flavor develop during cooking.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chew to the finished pudding.

The step that matters

Adjust the batter thickness. The batter should be thick enough to hold its shape while boiling. Too thin a batter can make the pudding loose and heavy, so adding flour as needed helps it set properly.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, apple, flour, nutmeg, sugar, milk, bread. 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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