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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A boiled plum pudding made with eggs, raisins, bread crumbs, suet, sugars, molasses, spices, citron, brandy, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine eggs, raisins, bread crumbs, suet, brown sugar, white sugar, molasses, baking soda, salt, citron, brandy, vanilla, and spices.

  2. Dip a cloth in hot water, rub butter over it, then dust with flour.

Boil

  1. Place the pudding mixture into the cloth, tie it tightly, and boil in water for 5 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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

  2. Vanilla + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Brandy + vanillatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together806 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Eggs
Bind the mixture and give the pudding structure as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding body and a soft, tender crumb.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding rich and moist during long cooking.
Raisins
Provide chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.
Molasses
Adds deep sweetness, dark color and a rich, slightly bitter flavor.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, with a caramel-like flavor.

The step that matters

Tying the cloth tightly. A tight tie keeps the pudding compact and stops water from seeping in during the long boil, so the texture stays dense and moist rather than soggy.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Applefits less well
  4. Datesfits less well

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

More plum pudding recipes

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

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