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Dessert

English Plum Pudding.

A steamed pudding made with suet, bread crumbs, flour, spices, dried fruit, apples, almonds, sugar, lemon, molasses, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

English Plum Pudding.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Stir the raisins and chop the apples, suet, peel, figs, and almonds separately.

  2. Grate the rind and strain the juice of the lemon.

  3. Mix all ingredients in the order given.

Boil

  1. Boil in a well-floured cloth or basin for six hours.

  2. Divide the pudding into two portions.

  3. Boil one portion for four hours.

  4. Set the other portion aside.

  5. When needed, boil the set-aside portion for an additional two 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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds richness and moisture, and keeps the pudding tender as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorbs liquid and gives the pudding its body and structure.
Flour
Helps bind the pudding and gives it firm structure as it steams.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help set it as it cooks.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps browning and flavour develop.
Apples
Add moisture and tartness that balance the sweetness of the dried fruit.

The step that matters

Boil in a well-floured cloth or basin. The cloth or basin must be well floured so the pudding releases cleanly and keeps its shape. Boiling for the full time, with the pudding submerged, cooks it evenly through a dense mixture.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Quincefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, flour, allspice, nutmeg, raisin, fig, cinnamon. 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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