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Dessert

English Plum Pudding

A steamed plum pudding made with suet, brown sugar, molasses, currants, raisins, sour milk, baking soda, eggs, cloves, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,070 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

English Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine chopped suet, brown sugar, molasses, currants, raisins, sour milk, baking soda, eggs, ground cloves, and spices.

  2. Mix well until all ingredients are combined.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam the pudding for 4 hours.

  3. Serve with your choice of 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 + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds fat and richness, keeping the pudding moist and tender during steaming.
Molasses
Contributes moisture, dark color and deep sweetness with a slightly bitter edge.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to release carbon dioxide, helping the pudding rise.
Eggs
Bind the ingredients together and add structure as the pudding sets.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, molasses, raisin, milk, egg, clove):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, molasses, raisin, milk, egg, clove. 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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