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Dessert

Boiled English Plum Pudding

A steamed or boiled pudding made with flour, raisins, currants, citron, brown sugar, molasses, eggs, suet, spices, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Boiled English Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine flour, raisins, currants, citron, brown sugar, molasses, eggs, and chopped suet.

  2. Add nutmeg, clove, and salt to the mixture.

  3. Gradually mix in enough milk to create a batter that is slightly thicker than usual.

Cook and serve

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

  2. Steam or boil for 5 to 6 hours until cooked through.

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. 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. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the dense batter together as it cooks.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm during long steaming.
Suet
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the pudding tender as it cooks.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture and a deep, slightly bitter sweetness.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture while deepening the pudding's flavor.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness, chewy texture and moisture to the pudding.

The step that matters

Gradually mix in enough milk. The batter should be slightly thicker than usual. Adding milk gradually lets you judge the consistency, since too much liquid makes a loose pudding that cooks up wet and heavy in texture.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, raisin, sugar, molasses, egg, milk, 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.

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