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Dessert

Thanksgiving Plum Pudding

A baked pudding made with raisins, milk, eggs, sugar, spices, and bread slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Thanksgiving Plum Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the custard

  1. Boil the raisins in the milk for 10 minutes.

  2. Remove the raisins from the milk.

  3. Add the beaten eggs, sugar, and salt to the boiled milk.

  4. Season the mixture with spices or vanilla.

Assemble

  1. Butter the bread slices.

  2. Soak the buttered bread slices in the custard mixture.

  3. Butter a deep pudding pan.

  4. Layer the soaked bread and raisins alternately until the pan is full.

  5. Let the mixture stand overnight.

  6. Fill the pan with milk in the morning.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 2.5 hours.

  2. Serve with cold 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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  5. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard so the bread and raisins hold together as the pudding bakes.
Milk
Forms the custard base, providing moisture that softens the bread as it bakes.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture scattered through the layers.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and adds to its browning as it bakes.
Stale bread
Absorbs the custard and forms the body of the pudding.

The step that matters

Layering and soaking the bread. Bread that is too fresh or not fully soaked stays dry in places, while over-soaking makes the layers collapse. Even soaking lets the custard set evenly during baking.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, sugar, vanilla, bread, butter):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sugar, vanilla, bread, butter. 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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