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Dessert

Plum-pudding {Mrs. General Sherman}

A steamed plum pudding made with butter, sugar, cream, rum, ale, suet, currants, raisins, candied orange, eggs, spices, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Plum-pudding {Mrs. General Sherman}

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.

  2. Thoroughly dry the bread crumbs and pass them through a sieve.

Make the pudding

  1. Mix all ingredients well.

  2. Add enough bread crumbs for proper consistency.

  3. Pour the mixture into a tin mold, filling it not quite to the top.

Cook

  1. Boil the pudding 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

  4. Rum + orangetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together801 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Rum + curranttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together155 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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 help it set firm when cooked.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and carries flavour through the pudding.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding body so it holds its shape.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender as it cooks.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the butter cream into a light base.

The step that matters

Add enough bread crumbs for proper consistency. The crumbs soak up liquid and stiffen the batter. Too few leaves the pudding wet and loose, while too many makes it dense and dry. Adding them gradually and checking the texture helps the pudding hold together.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, cream, rum, currant, raisin, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, cream, rum, currant, raisin, egg. 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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