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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, currants, citron, suet, apples, bread, eggs, milk, whisky, wine, spices, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and whisky work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 96 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a large bowl, combine the raisins, currants, citron, suet, chopped apples, and grated bread.

  2. In another bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the sweet milk, whisky, wine, mace, cinnamon, salt, nutmeg, and sugar.

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

  4. Transfer the mixture to a greased pudding mold or pan.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam in a pan for 5 hours.

  2. Serve with sauce.

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. Apple + whiskytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together96 recipes

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

  2. Apple + winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,207 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

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

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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 structure as they set during steaming.
Suet
Adds richness and fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender.
Grated bread
Absorbs the liquid and gives the pudding body and a soft crumb.
Raisins
Add sweetness, chewy texture and moisture to the pudding.
Apples
Add moisture and a tart note that balances the sweet dried fruit.
Sweet milk
Moistens the dry ingredients and helps them bind into a batter.

The step that matters

Transfer the mixture to a greased pudding mold or pan. The mixture is wet and loose, so a well-greased mold keeps it from sticking and tearing when turned out after steaming.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (currant, apple, bread, egg, milk, whisky, wine):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Grapefits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against currant, apple, bread, egg, milk, whisky, wine. 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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