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Dessert

English Plum Pudding

A traditional British plum pudding made with eggs, flour, milk, raisins, currants, citron, almonds, suet, sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

English Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs until frothy.

  2. Add enough flour to create a thick batter without lumps.

  3. Mix in the milk and beat well.

Add the fruit and spices

  1. Stir in the raisins, currants, citron, bitter almonds, brown sugar, nutmeg, allspice, mace, cinnamon, and chopped suet.

  2. Mix thoroughly and let sit for three days, beating well again before cooking.

  3. Add more milk if needed.

Cook

  1. If making two puddings, boil for four hours.

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

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

  3. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and give the pudding its structure as they set during cooking.
Flour
Thickens the batter and gives the pudding its body and structure.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich in texture.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a deeper, molasses-like flavour.
Currants
Add sweetness, tartness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Letting the batter rest for three days. The long rest lets the flour fully hydrate and the flavours of the spices and fruit blend. Beat it well again before cooking so the suet and fruit are evenly distributed rather than settling.

Swap the currant

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

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

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