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Dessert

Christmas Plum Pushing

A steamed or baked pudding made with raisins, currants, bread crumbs, suet, flour, almonds, candied peel, nutmeg, sugar, salt, baking soda, milk, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Christmas Plum Pushing

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Stir the raisins and finely chop the suet.

  2. In a large bowl, mix all the dry ingredients together.

Make the batter

  1. Dissolve the baking soda in the milk and add it to the mixture.

  2. Beat in the eggs one at a time.

Cook

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 1 hour or steam gently for 1 hour until firm.

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 + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides starch and structure that give the pudding its body as it sets.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm as it cooks.
Suet
Melts during cooking to add richness and a tender, moist crumb.
Baking soda
Releases gas that helps lighten the pudding's texture.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and eggs, giving the pudding a soft, moist body.
Milk
Moistens the dry ingredients and carries the baking soda through the batter.

The step that matters

Cooking gently until firm. Cooking too fast or at too high a heat can scorch the outside while the centre stays wet and dense. A slow oven or gentle steaming lets the eggs and crumbs set evenly throughout the pudding.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, bread, flour, almond, nutmeg, sugar, milk):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, bread, flour, almond, nutmeg, sugar, 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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