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Dessert

English Christmas Pudding

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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 ↓

English Christmas Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and thoroughly dry all fruit.

  2. Mix dry ingredients together.

  3. Add beaten eggs, brandy, port wine, and a little milk.

  4. Leave mixture covered overnight.

  5. Add more milk in the morning if necessary.

Boil

  1. Put into a basin, cover with greased paper, tie in a cloth, and boil for 10 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. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 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

Eggs
Bind the mixture and add structure as the pudding sets.
Self-raising flour
Gives the pudding body and helps it hold its shape.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and soften the texture of the pudding.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the dried fruit taste rich.

The step that matters

Boil for the full 10 hours. A long, steady boil cooks the eggs and flour through and gives the dense mixture its texture. Keep the water topped up so the pudding does not dry out or scorch.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, sugar, flour, bread, almond, nutmeg, lemon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, sugar, flour, bread, almond, nutmeg, lemon. 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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