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Dessert

English Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, raisins, currants, eggs, milk, spices, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg 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

Make the pudding

  1. In a large bowl, combine the suet, raisins, currants, beaten eggs, sour cream or milk, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.

  2. Add flour gradually until the mixture thickens.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a pudding mold.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam for 4 hours.

  2. Serve with 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 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 + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds richness and fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help give the pudding its set structure.
Sour cream or milk
Adds moisture and tenderness to the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour cream to lighten the pudding and aid rising.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, egg, cream, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, egg, cream, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, flour. 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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