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Dessert

Plum-pudding, with Brandy or Rum

A steamed plum pudding made with breadcrumbs, suet, dried fruits, spices, milk, eggs, and brandy or rum.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Plum-pudding, with Brandy or Rum

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine breadcrumbs, suet, brown sugar, dried fruits, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and baking powder.

  2. In another bowl, whisk together milk, brandy or rum, and eggs.

  3. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix well.

Steam and serve

  1. Grease a pudding mold and fill it with the mixture.

  2. Cover the mold with a cloth and steam for 2 to 3 hours.

  3. Let it cool slightly before serving.

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

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

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

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

  4. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Breadcrumbs
Bulk the pudding and soak up the liquid to give it a soft, tender body.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Brown sugar
Provides sweetness and a deep, molasses-like flavour.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help set the pudding structure as it cooks.
Mixed dried fruits
Add concentrated sweetness, chew and fruity flavour throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Steam for the full 2 to 3 hours. Steaming gently sets the eggs and breadcrumbs into a cohesive, moist pudding. Cutting the time short leaves the centre wet and dense, so the pudding should be fully cooked through before it is unmoulded.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, raisin, milk, brandy, cinnamon, nutmeg, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, raisin, milk, brandy, cinnamon, nutmeg, 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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