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Dessert

Good Family Plum Pudding

A rich, spiced pudding made with dried fruit, suet, flour, and candied peel, baked or boiled and served with butter wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 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 ↓

Good Family Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the raisins, currants, suet, almonds, flour, and bread crumbs.

  2. Add the candied citron, orange peel, lemon peel, nutmeg, mace, sugar, and salt.

  3. Moisten the mixture with the beaten eggs, cream, mountain wine, and brandy until it reaches a good consistency.

Cook and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture into a dish or mold, or tie it up in a cloth.

  2. Boil for at least 4 hours or bake until done.

  3. Serve with melted butter mixed with mountain wine and sprinkle with sugar.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

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

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 as they set during cooking.
Beef suet
Adds richness and moisture, giving the pudding a tender texture.
Flour
Provides body and structure so the pudding holds its shape.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and lighten the texture of the pudding.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor while contributing to the moist consistency.

The step that matters

Moisten to a good consistency. The liquid must be absorbed evenly by the flour and crumbs so the pudding holds together and cooks through without becoming soggy or crumbly.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, beef, almond, flour, bread, orange, lemon):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Cranberryfits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, beef, almond, flour, bread, orange, lemon. 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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