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Dessert

English Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, dried fruit, suet, spices, eggs, brandy, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

English Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Combine flour, raisins, currants, candied citron, candied lemon, suet, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg in a large bowl.

  2. Beat the eggs in another bowl.

  3. Add the beaten eggs to the mixture.

  4. Add a little brandy to the mixture.

  5. Add enough water to make a stiff batter.

Steam the pudding

  1. Butter a pudding bowl with a heavy rim at the top.

  2. Dip a cloth in boiling water.

  3. Dredge the cloth with flour.

  4. Tie the cloth tightly over the bowl.

  5. Immerse the bowl in boiling water, ensuring it is covered.

  6. Boil 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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the pudding together as it steams.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help set the pudding's texture as it cooks.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich during long steaming.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy moisture throughout the pudding.
Currants
Add sweetness and chewy moisture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Immerse the bowl in boiling water, ensuring it is covered. The bowl must stay fully submerged for the whole long boil so the pudding cooks evenly and steadily. If the water drops below the bowl, the exposed part dries out and the pudding cooks unevenly.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, raisin, lemon, beef, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, raisin, lemon, beef, cinnamon, ginger, 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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