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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with soaked bread, dried fruit, suet, eggs, milk, spices, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Soak the bread and crumble it into a large bowl.

  2. Add the raisins, currants, citron, suet, and brown sugar.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and mix with the milk.

  4. Combine the egg mixture with the dry ingredients.

  5. Add flour gradually until the batter is stiff enough for a large spoon to stand in it.

  6. Season with nutmeg, allspice, cloves, mace, grated lemon rind, and salt. Mix thoroughly and pour into a greased pudding mold.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam for several hours until cooked through.

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. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Currant + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,359 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and help set the pudding as it cooks.
Suet
Adds richness and fat, keeping the pudding moist and tender.
Baker's bread
Soaked and crumbled, it gives the pudding body and a soft crumb.
Flour
Thickens the batter to a stiff consistency so the pudding holds its shape.
Raisins
Provide sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the batter.

The step that matters

Add flour gradually until the batter is stiff enough. Flour absorbs liquid and sets the structure. Adding it all at once can make the batter too stiff in some spots and loose in others, so the pudding may cook unevenly and crumble or turn heavy.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, raisin, egg, milk, flour, nutmeg, allspice):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, raisin, egg, milk, flour, nutmeg, allspice. 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.

More plum pudding recipes

English 165Christmas 156Sauce 71Eggless 34Baked 33Vegetable 19 See all 649 →

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