Skip to main content
Dessert

Plum Pudding

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Allspice and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the raisins, currants, chopped suet, citron, ginger, allspice, and grated nutmeg.

  2. In another bowl, beat the eggs and add the molasses.

  3. Combine the egg mixture with the dry ingredients and mix in enough sweet milk to form a batter.

  4. Add flour and a little light bread to the mixture until well combined.

Cook

  1. Pour the mixture into a pudding cloth or mold and boil steadily for 4 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. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 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. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  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

Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help give the pudding its set structure.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour, plus moisture and a dark colour.
Flour
Provides the starch and structure that hold the pudding together.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Currants
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Boil steadily for 4 hours. The pudding must stay at a steady simmer for the full time so heat cooks it through evenly. Letting the water drop off or boil unevenly can leave the centre underdone or the texture uneven.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, ginger, allspice, nutmeg, egg, molasses, 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 →

You might also like

Soft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesGingerbreadGingerbread25 recipesGinger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipes