Why it works: Plum and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 185 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓
Plum Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Fill the dough with plums.
Wet the edges of the dough with cold water.
Roll it up, closing the edges tightly.
Steam for at least 1 hour.
Serve in slices with a sauce made of beaten butter and sugar, flavored with nutmeg or other flavoring.
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.
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Plum + nutmegtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together185 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Plum + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together710 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together24,377 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together23,364 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Sugar and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 23,364 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
Swap the plum
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, nutmeg):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Raisinfits better
- Plumthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, nutmeg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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