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Dessert

English Plum Pudding

A suet-based dessert with currants, raisins, candied peel, and spices, beaten with eggs and brandy, then boiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ingredients

  1. Chop the suet finely.

  2. Stone the raisins and remove stalks from Sultana raisins.

  3. Wash and dry the currants.

  4. Sift the flour and bread crumbs together.

  5. Chop the mixed candied peel.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs for ten minutes.

  2. Add brandy to the beaten eggs and mix thoroughly.

  3. Combine all ingredients and mix well.

  4. Pour the mixture into molds.

Boil

  1. Boil the molds 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 + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  4. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

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

  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

Eggs
Bind the mixture and add structure as they set during cooking.
Suet
Adds richness and fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender.
Flour
Provides structure, helping the pudding hold its shape after boiling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and lighten the texture of the pudding.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the fruit flavour carry through.

The step that matters

Boil the molds for 8 hours. Long, steady boiling cooks the eggs and starch through evenly and sets the pudding. If the water boils too weakly or dries out, the pudding can turn out heavy or unevenly cooked.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Datesfits about as well
  4. Currantthe original

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