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Dessert

Dr. Kitchener's Plum Pudding

A suet-based pudding with raisins, currants, candied lemon, and spices, baked slowly in boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon 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 ↓

Dr. Kitchener's Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs and spices together.

  2. Gradually mix in the milk.

  3. Add the remaining ingredients and beat thoroughly.

Boil

  1. Pour into a damp, floured pudding cloth.

  2. Place in boiling water and maintain a boil for 6 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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

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 help it set firm as it cooks.
Suet
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the pudding tender as it steams.
Bread-crumbs
Absorb liquid and add body, giving the pudding a light, soft structure.
Flour
Adds structure, helping the pudding hold its shape after boiling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the rich, fruity flavour.

The step that matters

Maintain a steady boil for 6 hours. The pudding cooks by steam and boiling water. If the water drops below a boil for long, the pudding cooks unevenly and can turn heavy. Keep the pot topped up with boiling water.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, currant, bread, flour, egg, nutmeg, cinnamon):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, currant, bread, flour, egg, nutmeg, cinnamon. 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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