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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with crackers, milk, eggs, flour, dried fruit, suet, apples, nutmeg, wine, sugar, butter, and citron.

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 ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the mixture

  1. Roll the crackers finely and pour boiling milk over them.

  2. Let the mixture cool, then beat in the eggs.

  3. Add the remaining ingredients and mix well.

Boil and serve

  1. Boil for 2 hours in a cloth bag.

  2. Scald the cloth and flour it well before use.

  3. For a smaller pudding, use half the quantity.

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. Apple + winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,207 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and set it into a firm, sliceable pudding when cooked.
Flour
Thickens the mixture and gives the pudding body and structure.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Crackers
Soak up the milk and add bulk, giving the pudding a tender crumb.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a deeper, molasses-like flavour.
Raisins
Add sweetness, chew and fruity texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Scald and flour the cloth. Scalding cleans and softens the cloth, and a floured surface forms a thin skin on the pudding so it does not stick to the cloth when boiled.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, flour, raisin, apple, nutmeg, wine. 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.

More plum pudding recipes

English 165Christmas 156Sauce 71Eggless 34Baked 33Vegetable 19 See all 649 →

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