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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed plum pudding made with raisins, currants, mixed peel, bread crumbs, suet, eggs, brandy, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ingredients

  1. Slice and cut the raisins in halves, but do not chop them.

  2. Wash, pick, and dry the currants.

  3. Mince the suet finely.

  4. Cut the candied peel into thin slices.

  5. Grate the bread into fine crumbs.

  6. Mix all the dry ingredients together.

Make the mixture

  1. Beat and strain the eggs, then stir them into the mixture.

  2. Add just enough milk to make it mix properly.

Boil and serve

  1. Tie the mixture in a well-floured cloth.

  2. Put it into boiling water and boil for at least 5 hours.

  3. Serve with a sprig of holly in the middle and sprinkle with pounded sugar.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 and richness as they set during boiling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding a soft, tender body.
Suet
Adds fat that enriches flavour and keeps the pudding moist.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps flavour the dried fruit and pudding.
Raisins
Provide concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Tie the mixture in a well-floured cloth. The floured cloth forms a dry skin that helps the pudding hold its shape while boiling, so the cloth must be sealed snugly around the mixture.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Currantthe original
  4. Datesfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, bread, egg, brandy, sugar. 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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