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Dessert

English Plum Pudding

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

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 Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. In a large bowl, mix the ground suet and sugar.

  2. Add the bread crumbs and flour, then mix in the currants, raisins, and chopped citron.

  3. Stir in the wine, brandy, and spices.

  4. Add the sweet milk and beaten eggs last, mixing well with your hands.

Fill and steam

  1. Grease your pudding molds or baking powder cans and fill them with the mixture.

  2. For a 2-pound pudding, use that much mixture in the can; it will not rise much or shrink.

  3. Steam the puddings for 8 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. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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 richness and structure as they set during steaming.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the liquids and give the pudding body and a soft, moist crumb.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich in texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the spices and dried fruit.
Baking powder
Provides a small amount of lift, so the pudding rises only slightly.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor while contributing moisture to the mixture.

The step that matters

Fill the molds without overfilling. The pudding rises and shrinks little, so the mixture must fill the mold to the right amount; the steam needs room to cook it evenly.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, bread, raisin, egg, milk, lemon, flour. 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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