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Dessert

An English Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, currants, suet, almonds, flour, bread crumbs, candied citrus, spices, eggs, cream, brandy, and white wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 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 ↓

An English Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Combine raisins, currants, chopped suet, pounded almonds, sifted flour, grated bread crumbs, candied citron, orange peel, lemon peel, nutmeg, mace, powdered sugar, and salt in a large bowl.

  2. Mix well, then add the beaten eggs, cream, brandy, and white wine; ensure the mixture is not too thin to prevent the fruit from settling.

Boil and serve

  1. Tie the mixture in a well-buttered cloth or bag and boil for 4 hours.

  2. Once cooked, sift powdered sugar over the pudding.

  3. Just before serving, pour brandy over the pudding and ignite it for a dramatic presentation.

  4. Serve with wine 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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

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

  4. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 help give the pudding its set structure when cooked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and add body, giving the pudding a soft, cohesive crumb.
All-purpose flour
Adds structure and body to the batter so the pudding holds together.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich in texture.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture through the pudding.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and tenderness to the pudding.

The step that matters

Keep the mixture thick enough before boiling. If the liquids are too generous, the heavy fruit sinks and the pudding cooks unevenly. A stiff, well-combined batter holds the fruit evenly throughout.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, beef, almond, flour, bread, orange, 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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