Name: A Common Family Plum Pudding
Ingredients: 1 pound plums, stoned and chopped; 1 pound currants, washed and dried; ¼ pound candied orange or lemon peel, chopped; 3 or 4 eggs; 6 ounces (¾ cup) suet, finely chopped; 1 pound flour; ½ teaspoon salt; ½ teaspoon ground allspice; Cold water, as needed

Why it works: Orange and allspice work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 727 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

A Common Family Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Prepare the plums by stoning and chopping them into 3 or 4 pieces.
Wash and dry the currants, ensuring they are free from stones and stalks.

Make the mixture

In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the suet, plums, currants, candied peel, flour, salt, and allspice.
Add cold water gradually until the mixture reaches a stiff consistency.

Cook

If boiling in a basin, cook for 3 hours; if in a cloth, cook for 2.5 hours, but longer is better.

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.

Orange + allspicetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together727 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Plum + orangetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together309 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Plum + allspicetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together162 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
Currant + allspicetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,359 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).
Plum + curranttop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together255 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Bind the mixture and add structure as they set during cooking.
Flour: Provides the body and structure that holds the pudding together.
Suet: Adds fat for a rich, tender texture as it melts during cooking.
Plums: Add moisture and fruity sweetness throughout the pudding.
Currants: Add sweetness and chewy pockets of dried fruit flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the cold water. Add the water gradually and stop at a stiff consistency. Flour starch and proteins absorb water as they are mixed, so pouring it in all at once can make the mixture too slack to hold its shape, while too little leaves it dry and crumbly.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (plum, orange, egg, flour, allspice):

Lemonfits better
Figfits better
Vanillafits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against plum, orange, egg, flour, allspice. 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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A Common Family Plum Pudding