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Dessert

A Rich Plum Pudding

A plum pudding made with eggs, flour, suet, plums, currants, candied peel, almonds, brandy, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,833 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

A Rich Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix the eggs, flour, salt, nutmeg, ginger or cinnamon, mace, and suet or marrow in a large bowl until well combined.

  2. Add the plums, currants, candied peel, and almonds, and mix thoroughly.

  3. Stir in the brandy and powdered sugar until the mixture reaches the consistency of thick batter.

  4. If the mixture is too thick, add a little water.

Cook and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a buttered basin or mold, or wrap it in a cloth.

  2. Boil for 4 hours or more.

  3. Sprinkle the cooked pudding with sifted sugar and garnish with sliced lemon.

  4. Serve with wine or lemon 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. Ginger + orangetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,833 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Plum + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together309 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 give the pudding its set structure as they cook.
Fine flour
Provides the body that holds the fruit and suet together during boiling.
Beef suet or marrow
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich in texture.
Currants
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy fruit pieces throughout the pudding.
Plums
Contribute moisture and tart-sweet fruit flavor as they soften in cooking.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor, and helps preserve the pudding.

The step that matters

Boiling the pudding for 4 hours or more. Long, steady boiling cooks the eggs and flour through and sets the dense mixture. Too little time leaves it wet and crumbly, and the water must stay at a steady boil so it does not dry out or turn heavy.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, nutmeg, ginger, beef, plum, orange. 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 →

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