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 ↓
Plum- Pudding for the Million
Ingredients
Directions
Make the pudding
Combine the flour, raisins, currants, suet, treacle, and water in a bowl and mix all ingredients well.
Place the mixture in a cloth or mold.
Cook
Boil for 4.5 to 5 hours.
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.
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Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,180 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
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Flour + curranttop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,077 recipes
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the main structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
- Suet
- Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich during long steaming.
- Raisins
- Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
- Currants
- Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
- Treacle
- Adds sweetness, dark color, and a deep molasses-like flavor.
The step that matters
Boil for 4.5 to 5 hours. Long, steady boiling cooks the dense batter through evenly. If the water boils dry or drops to a low simmer, the pudding can end up undercooked or heavy in the center, so the pot needs topping up with water.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, raisin):
- Figfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Datesfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, raisin. 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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