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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A boiled suet pudding of bread crumbs, dried fruit, spices, eggs, brandy and sugar, steamed for many hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Finely chop the suet and mix it with the flour.

  2. Stone the Valencias, clean and pick the currants and sultanas, and finely chop the peel and almonds.

Make the mixture

  1. In a large bowl, mix the bread crumbs, suet, fruit, sugar, spices, and salt.

  2. Add the lemon zest and juice to the mixture.

  3. Beat the eggs and add them to the mixture along with the brandy and rum.

  4. Add milk if needed to achieve a dropping consistency.

Boil and serve

  1. Tie the mixture in floured cloths or greased basins.

  2. Boil steadily for 8 to 12 hours.

  3. For serving, boil for an additional 2 hours if made in advance.

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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Grape + almondtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).

  3. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Grape + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,412 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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 add structure as they set during boiling.
Suet
Adds fat and richness, keeping the pudding moist and tender.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding a soft, light body.
Demerara sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the pudding a dark, rich flavour.
Flour
Helps bind the suet and crumbs so the pudding holds its shape.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour and helps preserve the pudding.

The step that matters

Boil steadily for 8 to 12 hours. The pudding must be kept at a steady boil for the full time so the heat cooks the eggs and starch through. Letting the water drop or boil unevenly can leave the centre undercooked or the texture uneven.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, flour, grape, almond, sugar, lemon, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, flour, grape, almond, sugar, lemon, egg. 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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