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Dessert

Christmas Pudding

A steamed or boiled dessert made with breadcrumbs, suet, dried fruit, spices, eggs, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Christmas Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit and suet

  1. Chop the suet, clean the currants and sultanas, and stone the raisins.

  2. Chop or shred the candied peel and mix all ingredients in a large bowl with the spices.

Mix the pudding

  1. Beat the eggs and stir them into the mixture along with the brandy until well combined.

Steam and serve

  1. Grease two pudding basins and fill them to the top with the pudding mixture.

  2. Tie down with a cloth dipped in boiling water and well floured.

  3. Plunge into boiling water and boil steadily for eight hours.

  4. When ready to serve, boil for another two hours or longer.

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. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  5. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 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

Breadcrumbs
Provide the bulk and structure that hold the pudding together.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set as it cooks.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour to the pudding.

The step that matters

Keeping the basins sealed and the water boiling. A tight cloth seal and steadily boiling water keep steam trapped around the pudding for the full long cook. Water that drops too low or a loose cover lets the pudding dry out and cook unevenly.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, ginger, allspice, nutmeg, egg, brandy):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, ginger, allspice, nutmeg, egg, brandy. 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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