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Dessert

A Plum Pudding

A plum pudding made with suet, currants, raisins, egg yolks, egg whites, crumbed loaf, flour, spices, brandy, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

A Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs and mix them with some milk.

  2. Gradually add the flour and other ingredients.

  3. Add enough milk to make a very thick batter.

Boil

  1. Stir well and boil for five 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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Suet
Melts during boiling, keeping the pudding moist and tender.
Flour
Starch and gluten form the main structure that holds the pudding together.
Egg yolks
Proteins set when heated, binding the pudding and adding richness.
Egg whites
Proteins set on heating, helping bind the pudding together.
Penny loaf
Dried crumbs soak up liquid and help bind the batter.
Raisins
Dried fruit adds sweetness and a chewy texture.

The step that matters

Add enough milk to make a very thick batter.. Flour and bread crumbs absorb liquid and their starch swells and sets as it cooks. Too much milk gives a loose, heavy pudding, while a very thick batter holds its shape during the long boil.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, egg, flour, nutmeg, ginger, 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.

More plum pudding recipes

English 165Christmas 156Sauce 71Eggless 34Baked 33Vegetable 19 See all 649 →

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