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Dessert

English Plum Pudding

A steamed or boiled pudding made with suet, raisins, currants, citron, sugar, eggs, milk, nutmeg, salt, flour, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

English Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the chopped suet, raisins, currants, citron, brown sugar, eggs, milk, nutmeg, salt, and vanilla flavoring.

  2. Gradually add flour until the mixture is very stiff.

Cook and store

  1. Transfer the mixture into buttered cans.

  2. Boil the cans in a kettle of water for 4 to 5 hours.

  3. This pudding can be stored for 3 to 4 weeks and can also be steamed.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help set the pudding's structure as it cooks.
Globe a-l flour
Gives the stiff batter the body needed to hold its shape while boiling.
Raisins
Provide sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a deeper, molasses-like flavor.

The step that matters

Boil the cans in a kettle of water for 4 to 5 hours. The pudding cooks gently by steam and hot water over a long time, which sets the eggs and softens the suet. Keeping the water boiling and topping it up prevents the cans from drying out or cooking unevenly.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Blueberryfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, sugar, egg, milk, nutmeg, flour, vanilla. 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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