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Dessert

Christmas Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made from raisins, currants, breadcrumbs, suet, spices, eggs, and brandy, served with brandy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Christmas Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the pudding

  1. Combine raisins, sultanas, currants, breadcrumbs, candied peel, sugar, suet, mixed spices, and salt in a large bowl, and mix all ingredients well.

  2. Moisten the mixture with the beaten eggs.

  3. Add brandy, essence of lemon, and ratafia.

  4. If the mixture is too dry, add a little new milk.

  5. Stir in the dried flour and mix thoroughly.

Boil and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a pudding cloth or mold.

  2. Boil for 6 to 8 hours.

  3. Turn out the pudding.

  4. Decorate with blanched almonds and place a sprig of holly on top.

  5. Pour a little brandy around it.

  6. Set it on fire before serving with brandy sauce.

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. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  4. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding a soft, light body.
Beef suet
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the pudding tender as it cooks.
Muscatel raisins
Provide sweetness, chew and moisture throughout the pudding.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the pudding moist.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor, and helps the pudding keep well.

The step that matters

Boil for 6 to 8 hours. The pudding must cook long and at a steady simmer so the eggs and suet set through the center without drying or scorching at the edges.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, currant, sugar, beef, egg, brandy, milk):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, currant, sugar, beef, egg, brandy, 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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