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Christmas Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, breadcrumbs, dried fruit, spices, butter, and almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 ↓

Christmas Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. In a large bowl, combine flour, breadcrumbs, raisins, sultanas, currants, sugar, grated apples, mixed peel, sweet almonds, bitter almonds, lemon rind, nutmeg, spice, cinnamon, salt, pine kernels, and butter.

  2. Mix well until all ingredients are evenly combined. Add a little water to achieve a moist but firm consistency.

Steam and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture into a pudding mold and cover it securely.

  2. Steam the pudding for several hours until cooked through.

  3. Allow to cool before serving.

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. Flour + raisintop 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. Lemon + nutmegtop 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dense pudding together.
Breadcrumbs
Soak up moisture and give the pudding a light, tender body.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, more tender texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the pudding brown and develop flavour.
Grated apples
Add moisture and a fruity acidity that keeps the pudding from tasting heavy.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Steaming until cooked through. Steam heat cooks the dense mixture slowly and evenly. Cutting the steaming short leaves the centre raw and wet, while a tightly sealed mold keeps steam and moisture in so the pudding cooks evenly.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, raisin, sugar, apple, almond, lemon, 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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