Name: Another Way to Make Plum Pudding
Ingredients: 1 pound fresh beef suet, finely minced; 1 pound raisins, stoned; 5 tablespoons flour; 5 tablespoons brown sugar; 5 egg yolks; 3 egg whites, well beaten; 1 teaspoon salt

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

Make the pudding

Mix all the ingredients thoroughly.
Place the mixture in a cloth and boil for 4 to 5 hours.

Serve

Serve with grated loaf sugar and melted butter poured over it.

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.

Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Beef + raisintop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,273 recipes

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

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Beef suet: Melts during cooking to add richness, moisture and a tender texture to the pudding.
Raisins: Add sweetness, chew and moisture as they plump in the steam.
Flour: Provides structure that holds the pudding together after boiling.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and a deeper, caramel-like flavor.
Egg yolks: Add richness and help bind the mixture into a cohesive pudding.
Egg whites: Set with heat to add lightness and give the pudding a softer structure.

The step that matters

Boiling in the cloth for 4 to 5 hours. The pudding must stay fully submerged in gently simmering water for the whole time. If the water boils down or the cloth loosens, the pudding can dry out or cook unevenly, while a violent boil can break the cloth and sog the pudding.

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

White Cake431 recipes

Pound Cake373 recipes

Orange Bundt Cake349 recipes

Spice Cake344 recipes

Like knowing why a recipe works?

The free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.

Another Way to Make Plum Pudding