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Dessert

French Plum Pudding

A baked plum pudding made with flour, eggs, cream, and simmered plums.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

French Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the plums

  1. Pour boiling water over the plums and simmer for 1 hour.

  2. Stone and drain the plums.

Make and boil the pudding

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, salt, egg yolks, egg whites, and cream to make a batter.

  2. Fold the plums into the batter.

  3. Tie the mixture firmly in a well-floured cloth, leaving room for expansion.

  4. Boil for 3 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. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Plum + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together777 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  4. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Plum + creamtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together369 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

What each ingredient does

French plums
Add moisture and fruity sweetness, softening as they simmer in the pudding.
Flour
Forms the starch structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Egg yolks
Add richness and fat, and help bind the batter.
Egg whites
Trap air and help the pudding set light yet firm.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture, keeping the pudding tender.

The step that matters

Tying the cloth. The cloth must be tied firmly enough to keep boiling water out, yet loosely enough for the batter to expand as the starch swells and the eggs set. Too tight a tie can burst the cloth or squeeze the pudding dense, while too loose lets water soak in and make it soggy.

Swap the plum

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, egg, cream):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Plumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, cream. 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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