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Dessert

Rich Plum Pudding

A rich boiled pudding of dried fruit, suet, nuts, bread crumbs, eggs, sugar, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 ↓

Rich Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Stone the raisins.

  2. Wash the currants.

  3. Finely chop the beef suet.

  4. Finely chop the sweet and bitter almonds.

Make the batter

  1. Mix the raisins, currants, suet, almonds, flour, and soaked bread crumbs in a large bowl.

  2. Add the chopped preserved citron, orange peel, and lemon peel, and the mixed spice.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the sugar and eggs together until well combined.

  4. Stir the egg mixture into the pudding mixture, adding milk to achieve a thick batter consistency.

  5. Pour the brandy over the fruit and spice mixture, let it sit for 3-4 hours, stirring occasionally.

Boil and serve

  1. Tie the pudding mixture in a cloth and boil for 5 hours.

  2. Once cooked, turn the pudding out onto a dish, sift loaf sugar over the top, and serve with wine 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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and help set the pudding as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Soak up milk to add moisture and a soft, tender crumb.
Flour
Provides structure so the pudding holds its shape after boiling.
Beef suet
Adds richness and fat that keeps the pudding moist.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and helps browning and flavour depth.
Raisins
Provide chewy texture and concentrated sweetness.

The step that matters

Soaking the fruit in brandy. The fruit and spices need time to absorb the brandy and flavours evenly. Stirring during the rest keeps the mixture uniform so the pudding does not turn out patchy in flavour.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, beef, almond, flour, bread, milk, orange):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, beef, almond, flour, bread, milk, orange. 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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