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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with bread crumbs, raisins, currants, suet, molasses, eggs, spices, yeast, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Pour hot milk over bread crumbs in a large bowl.

  2. Add raisins, currants, suet, molasses, and beaten eggs.

  3. Stir in cinnamon, ginger, grated nutmeg, salt, yeast, and flour until well combined.

Steam and serve

  1. Transfer mixture to a cloth or mold and steam for at least 6 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. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 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. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  5. Bread + milktop 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

Bread crumbs
Soak up the hot milk to form the body of the pudding.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and add structure as they set during steaming.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and a deep flavor.
Flour
Adds bulk and helps give the pudding its firm texture.
Quick yeast
Produces gas that lightens the batter slightly as it rests.

The step that matters

Steaming the pudding. The pudding must steam for a long, continuous time so the eggs and starches set through the center. Undercooked centers stay wet and heavy, and the cloth or mold must be sealed so steam cannot dilute the batter.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, raisin, molasses, egg, cinnamon, ginger):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, raisin, molasses, egg, cinnamon, ginger. 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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