Name: Mock Plum Pudding
Ingredients: 4 slices of dry bread; 1 cup of water; 1 cup of raisins, prunes, or dry figs; spices to taste; 3 eggs, lightly beaten; 1 cup brown sugar; 1 teaspoon baking powder

Why it works: Raisin and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,481 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Mock Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Soak the dry bread in water until soft.
Chop the soaked bread and mix with the raisins, prunes, or figs.
Add spices, beaten eggs, brown sugar, and baking powder to the mixture.

Cook

Pour the mixture into a greased container.
Boil in a pot of water for 1¼ 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.

Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Bread + raisintop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,111 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Raisin + eggtop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,556 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 set into a tender, custard-like crumb as they cook.
Dry bread: Forms the body of the pudding and soaks up liquid to become soft.
Raisins, prunes, or dry figs: Add sweetness and chewy pockets of fruit throughout the pudding.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and a slightly molasses-like flavour.
Baking powder: Releases gas that lightens the texture of the pudding.

The step that matters

Boil in a pot of water for 1¼ hours. The container must be sealed or covered well and the water kept simmering so the eggs set through without water seeping in. If the pudding is undercooked in the middle, the egg proteins have not fully set and the texture stays wet and loose.