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Dessert

English Plum Pudding

A steamed plum pudding made with raisins, currants, citron, bread crumbs, suet, eggs, sugar, nutmeg, salt, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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. Mix the raisins, currants, citron, bread crumbs, and suet in a large bowl.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and enough milk gradually to make the mixture moist but not wet.

Boil and serve

  1. Fill bowls with the mixture, covering them tightly with cloths.

  2. Boil the bowls steadily for 8 hours.

  3. When ready to serve, boil for 1 hour.

  4. Serve with ice cream and rich 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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture together and help it hold its shape when cooked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding a soft, tender body.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Raisins
Add sweetness and a chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Currants
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Light brown sugar
Adds sweetness and molasses-like depth of flavor.

The step that matters

Boil the bowls steadily for 8 hours. A long, steady boil cooks the dense mixture evenly through to the center. Keeping the bowls covered tightly traps steam, which keeps the pudding moist rather than dry.

Swap the currant

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

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

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