Skip to main content
Dessert

Another Way to Make Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, currants, suet, flour, bread, sugar, eggs, spices, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Another Way to Make Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Mix

  1. In a large bowl, mix the raisins, currants, suet, flour, grated bread, brown sugar, eggs, cloves, Jamaica pepper, nutmeg, and salt until well combined. Stir in the brandy.

Boil and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a pudding cloth or mold.

  2. Boil for 3 to 4 hours.

  3. Serve with wine and sugar 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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

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

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

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 the pudding set as it cooks.
Suet
Adds richness and fat that keeps the pudding moist.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a deeper, caramel-like flavour.
Raisins
Provide chewy texture and concentrated sweetness.
Currants
Add tart, chewy fruit texture and sweetness throughout.
Flour
Helps thicken the mixture and give the pudding body.

The step that matters

Boil for 3 to 4 hours. The pudding must cook long enough and at a steady boil so the eggs and flour fully set. Too little time leaves it wet and dense, while letting the water boil dry or stop can scorch or undercook it.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, flour, bread, sugar, egg, clove, pepper. 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 →

You might also like

Bread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipesBrandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipes