Name: Baked Plum-pudding
Ingredients: 2 lbs flour; 1 lb currants; 1 lb raisins; 1 lb suet; 2 eggs; 1 pint milk; a few slices candied peel

Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Baked Plum-pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a good oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Chop the suet finely.
Mix the suet with flour, currants, raisins, and candied peel.
Moisten the mixture with well-beaten eggs and enough milk to achieve a very thick batter consistency.
Put the mixture into a buttered dish.

Bake and serve

Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 2 to 2.5 hours.
Turn it out.
Sprinkle sifted sugar over it.
Serve.

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.

Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,180 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + milktop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,155 recipes

Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Flour: Forms the bulk and structure of the pudding as it sets.
Eggs: Bind the mixture and help it set firm when baked.
Suet: Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich.
Milk: Moistens the mixture to a very thick batter consistency.
Currants: Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Raisins: Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Moistening to a very thick batter. Too much milk makes the pudding wet and slack, so it may not set firmly in the oven. Add the milk gradually and stop once the mixture is very thick but still holds together.

Swap the currant

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

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Coconutfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, raisin, 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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Baked Plum-pudding