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Dessert

French Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, grated bread, sugar, French plums, eggs, milk, and ratafia.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

French Plum Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Mix the suet, grated bread, sugar, French plums, beaten eggs, milk, and ratafia in a bowl.

  2. Let the mixture stand for 2 hours.

Boil and serve

  1. Boil the pudding for 2 hours, stirring well before finishing.

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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Plum + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together406 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  4. Bread + plumtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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.
Grated bread
Absorbs the milk and egg and gives the pudding its body.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set it to a firm, sliceable texture when cooked.
Milk
Hydrates the bread and adds moisture to the mixture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the suet.
French plums
Provide fruit flavour and sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Boil the pudding for 2 hours, stirring well before finishing. A steady, gentle boil cooks the egg and bread into a set structure. Stirring before finishing spreads the fruit and suet evenly so they do not sink or pool in one spot.

Swap the plum

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, sugar, egg, milk):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Datesfits better
  4. Plumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, 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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