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Dessert

Cold Plum Puddings

Cold plum puddings are a chilled bread pudding made with molasses, spices, raisins, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg 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 ↓

Cold Plum Puddings

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Soak the bread

  1. Soak the broken bread in milk for 4 hours on the back of the stove.

  2. If the bread absorbs the milk, add more to keep a stiff batter.

Mix and bake

  1. Remove from heat and stir in the beaten eggs and raisins.

  2. Grease a pudding pot and pour in the mixture.

  3. Bake in a slow oven (300°F / 150°C) or overnight.

Cool and serve

  1. Let cool, then turn out and slice.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread
Soaked bread gives the pudding its body and holds the milk and eggs.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour and moisture to the pudding.
Eggs
Set when heated, binding the pudding so it can be sliced.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, more tender crumb.
Raisins
Add pockets of sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Ground cinnamon
Adds warm spice aroma that complements the molasses.

The step that matters

Keep the batter stiff. Bread keeps soaking up milk as it sits, so a wet batter bakes loose. Adding milk to keep it stiff gives the eggs and bread enough structure to set into a pudding that holds its shape when sliced.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, molasses, cinnamon, nutmeg, butter, egg, milk):

  1. Clovethe original
  2. Allspicefits about as well
  3. Cardamomfits less well
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, molasses, cinnamon, nutmeg, butter, 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.

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