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A Baked Plum Pudding En Moule, or Moulded

A baked plum pudding made with suet, raisins, currants, sugar, flour, candied citron, eggs, milk, brandy, and spices.

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 Baked Plum Pudding En Moule, or Moulded

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the suet, raisins, currants, sugar, flour, candied citron, and lemon or orange rind.

  2. Add the whisked eggs, milk, brandy, salt, and nutmeg or ginger, then beat lightly until combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered mold or cake tin.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1.5 to 2 hours.

  3. Turn out from the mold and serve with Devonshire cream or melted apricot marmalade.

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

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

  3. Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

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

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and set the pudding into a firm, sliceable structure as they cook.
Flour
Provides the starch and structure that hold the pudding together.
Beef-kidney suet
Adds richness and fat that keep the pudding moist and tender.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Milk
Adds moisture that loosens the batter and helps it cook through.
Pounded sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Baking time depends on the mold size and oven accuracy. Underbaking leaves the eggs and flour center wet and unset, while overbaking dries the pudding out.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, raisin, sugar, flour, lemon, egg, milk):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, raisin, sugar, flour, lemon, egg, 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.

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