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Dessert

Plum-Pudding

A traditional British plum pudding made with suet, bread crumbs, dried fruit, sugar, spices, port, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Plum-Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix all ingredients thoroughly for 3 days before adding the eggs.

Finish and cook

  1. After 3 days, add the eggs and mix well.

  2. Boil in a covered tin or tied up in a cloth 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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Currant + appletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Provides fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the liquids and give the pudding its body and structure.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm during boiling.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the flavour deepen during the long rest.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Add the eggs after the 3-day rest. The mixture is left to soak so the crumbs and dried fruit absorb the liquids and flavours. Adding the eggs at the right point keeps the batter from setting too early, and the long boil then sets the pudding evenly.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, raisin, sugar, lemon, apple, egg, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, raisin, sugar, lemon, apple, egg, nutmeg. 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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