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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with milk, bread crumbs, suet, sugar, eggs, dried fruit, spices, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Scald the milk and pour it over the bread crumbs.

  2. Cream the chopped suet, then add the sugar and beaten egg yolks.

  3. Once the milk and crumbs are cool, combine them with the suet mixture.

  4. Add the raisins, figs, currants, citron, salt, and spices.

  5. Stir in the brandy and fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered mold and steam for five hours.

  2. Serve with hard 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. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Raisin + figtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

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

  3. Milk + figtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,026 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  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

Bread crumbs
Soaked in hot milk, they give the pudding its body and hold the fruit and fat.
Suet
Creamed into the batter, it adds richness and keeps the pudding moist and tender.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whipped whites lighten its texture.
Sugar
Creamed with the suet, it adds sweetness and helps the mixture become smooth.
Raisins
Dried fruit that adds sweetness, chewiness, and moisture throughout the pudding.
Brandy
Stirred into the batter, it adds aroma and a warm, spirited flavor.

The step that matters

Folding in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Beaten whites trap air that lightens the pudding. Stirring them in vigorously deflates the foam, leaving a dense result, so fold gently until just combined.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, bread, sugar, egg, raisin, fig, brandy. 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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