Name: Plain Plum Pudding
Ingredients: ½ pound flour (or some bread crumbs with the flour); ¼ pound suet, finely chopped; 1½ pounds sultanas, currants or raisins, a few of each; ¼ pound sugar; a few pieces candied fruit; 2 teaspoons corn syrup; ¼ teaspoon carbonate soda; 1 cup milk; ¼ teaspoon salt

Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Plain Plum Pudding

Ingredients

½ pound flour (or some bread crumbs with the flour)
¼ pound suet, finely chopped
1½ pounds sultanas, currants or raisins, a few of each
¼ pound sugar
a few pieces candied fruit
2 teaspoons corn syrup
¼ teaspoon carbonate soda
1 cup milk
¼ teaspoon salt

Directions

Combine flour, suet, sultanas, currants, raisins, sugar, candied fruit, corn syrup, and salt in a bowl.
Dissolve carbonate soda in a little warm water and add to the mixture.
Stir in the milk until well combined.
Transfer the mixture to a pudding cloth or mold.
Boil or steam for 2 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.

Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,842 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,955 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,165 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, corn, syrup, milk):

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Figfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, corn, syrup, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

Corn Cake90 recipes

Corn Starch Cake89 recipes

Red Currant Jelly65 recipes

Currant Ice Cream32 recipes

Like knowing why a recipe works?

The free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.

Plain Plum Pudding