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Preserve

English Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, currants, suet, soda crackers, eggs, butter, spices, candied lemon peel, cornstarch, and sweet milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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. Combine raisins, currants, sugar, suet, soda crackers, eggs, butter, cloves, nutmeg, candied lemon peel, cornstarch, and sweet milk in a large bowl and mix well until all ingredients are thoroughly combined.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a pudding mold or a heatproof bowl.

Steam

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

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

  4. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

  5. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

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 set the pudding as it cooks.
Suet
Adds richness and fat that keeps the pudding moist as it cooks.
Soda crackers
Absorb liquid and give the pudding body and structure.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Cover tightly and boil for 4 hours. A tight cover traps steam so the pudding cooks evenly and stays moist. If the water level drops or the cover is loose, the pudding can dry out or cook unevenly over the long boil.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, sugar, beef, egg, butter, clove, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, sugar, beef, egg, butter, clove, nutmeg. 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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