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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, breadcrumbs, raisins, currants, suet, eggs, and spices, flavored with treacle and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 and rest

  1. Mix all the ingredients together and let them stand overnight.

  2. Add the brandy and enough milk to make the mixture light.

  3. Turn the mixture into pudding basins.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam for 8 to 9 hours.

  2. Serve with brandy butter or 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the pudding cooks.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it rise lighter when steamed.
Suet
Melts during steaming, adding fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb liquid and add body, giving a softer, more even crumb.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a molasses-like depth of flavour.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy fruit texture throughout.

The step that matters

Add the brandy and enough milk to make the mixture light. The liquid loosens the stiff mixture so the eggs and flour can expand and set evenly during steaming. Too little milk gives a dense, heavy pudding.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, raisin, nutmeg, sugar, egg, brandy, 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.

More plum pudding recipes

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