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Dessert

English Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, raisins, currants, molasses, flour, and spices, served with a butter-sugar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

English Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. In a large bowl, combine suet, raisins, eggs, milk, molasses, currants, baking soda, cloves, grated nutmeg, and flour, then mix well until all ingredients are combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  3. Steam the pudding for 3 to 4 hours.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, cream together the butter and sugar in a saucepan, then add cornstarch and stir well.

  2. Grate in ½ nutmeg and pour in boiling water.

  3. Boil the sauce for about 15 minutes, stirring constantly.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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 moist and rich as it steams.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help set the pudding's texture.
Molasses
Adds dark sweetness and a deep, rich flavor.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the sauce.
Cornstarch
Thickens the sauce as it boils.

The step that matters

Boil the sauce for about 15 minutes, stirring constantly. Cornstarch only thickens fully when it reaches a boil, and constant stirring prevents lumps and scorching on the bottom of the saucepan.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, egg, milk, molasses, clove, nutmeg, 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.

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