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Dessert

Plum Pudeing

A steamed pudding made with raisins, currants, citron, suet, butter, flour, sugar, eggs, milk, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Plum Pudeing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the bread slices in milk.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the egg whites and yolks, then add sugar and butter.

  2. Stir in the suet, soaked bread, flour, and grated nutmeg mixed with brandy.

  3. Add the prepared fruit and mix well.

Boil and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a pudding mold and boil 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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  5. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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 add richness and lift to the pudding.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, contributing to a tender crumb.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture through the pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the pudding its browned flavor.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture into a pudding mold and boil for four hours.. The pudding must be sealed and kept at a steady boil for the full time so it cooks through evenly. Too little water or a loose lid lets it dry out or turn heavy and wet in the centre.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, flour, egg, sugar, butter, milk, bread):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, flour, egg, sugar, butter, milk, bread. 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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