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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with molasses, raisins, butter, flour, sugar, baking soda, egg, spices, salt, and sweet milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix molasses, baking soda, sugar, chopped raisins, butter, flour, egg, spices, salt, and sweet milk in a large bowl until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  3. Steam the pudding for two hours.

  4. Serve with sour 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 + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture and a deep, sweet flavor to the pudding.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acidity to lift and lighten the batter as it steams.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps it set into a firm, cohesive texture.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Chopped raisins
Add chewy pockets of sweetness and moisture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Steam the pudding for two hours. Steaming gently and steadily cooks the batter through without drying it out. Letting the water boil dry or lifting the lid too often lowers the steam and can leave the pudding dense or undercooked.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Raisinthe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Peachfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, sugar, butter, flour, egg, milk. 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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