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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with currants, raisins, candied peel, palm nuts, breadcrumbs, almonds, sugar, flour, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. In a basin, mix currants, raisins, sultana raisins, candied peel, Palmine, breadcrumbs, and almonds.

  2. Stir in the sugar and flour until well combined.

  3. Add the beaten eggs and mix thoroughly.

Steam and boil

  1. Grease basins and fill with the mixture, covering the top with greased paper.

  2. Tie a cloth over the top and plunge into boiling water.

  3. Boil for at least five hours, ensuring the basin is not fully submerged.

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 + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  5. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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 and richness as they set during cooking.
Flour
Adds body and structure, helping the pudding hold its shape as it cooks.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and help give the pudding a soft, tender crumb.
Moist dark brown sugar
Adds sweetness and molasses flavour, and moisture to the batter.
Currants
Provide concentrated sweetness and chewy texture through the pudding.

The step that matters

Keep the basin not fully submerged while boiling. Boiling for hours in a sealed, cloth-covered basin needs steady water level and a tight cover; if the basin is fully submerged, water can seep under the cloth and soak the pudding, making it soggy. Keeping the water at a steady boil also ensures even cooking throughout the long steaming time.

Swap the currant

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

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

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

More plum pudding recipes

English 165Christmas 156Sauce 71Eggless 34Baked 33Vegetable 19 See all 649 →

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