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Plum Pudding Mould

A custard-like dish made by lining a mould with plum pudding slices and pouring a milk, almond, sugar, lemon rind, and egg mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Plum and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 211 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Plum Pudding Mould

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mould

  1. Line a 1½ pint mould with thin slices of plum pudding.

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, gently boil ½ cup milk with ¼ teaspoon salt and 5 bruised bitter almonds for 5 minutes.

  2. Add 2½ oz sugar and the thin rind of 1 lemon to the milk mixture.

  3. Strain the mixture and mix it with 4 beaten eggs.

Cook

  1. Pour the mixture into the mould while still warm.

  2. Boil gently for 1 hour.

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. Plum + almondtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together211 recipes

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

  2. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Plum + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together406 recipes

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

  4. Plum + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together623 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving the pudding a firm, sliceable body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and keeps the set texture soft and moist.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and adds to its tender texture.
Plum pudding
Forms the outer lining of the mould and supplies the dense, fruity crumb.

The step that matters

Boil gently for 1 hour. Rapid boiling can make the egg custard bubble and turn spongy or cracked. A gentle simmer lets the eggs set evenly into a smooth, firm texture.

Swap the plum

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, almond, sugar, lemon, egg. 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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