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
Prepare the mixture
Combine the beef suet and sun raisins in a bowl.
Add the flour, salt, loaf sugar, and grated nutmeg to the mixture.
Beat the eggs and add them to the mixture without any other liquid.
Boil
Flour a cloth well and place it in a pudding mold.
Pour the mixture into the mold and tie the cloth tightly over it.
Boil in a pot of water for at least 6 hours, ensuring the water remains boiling.
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.
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Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,377 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
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Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Beef suet
- Provides fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
- Eggs
- Bind the mixture and help give the pudding its set structure.
- Flour
- Thickens the mixture so it holds together during long boiling.
- Sun raisins
- Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
The step that matters
Keep the water boiling for the full cooking time. If the water drops below a boil, the pudding cooks unevenly and can turn heavy or soggy. Steady heat sets the eggs and flour gradually, so the water must stay at a full boil for the whole 6 hours, with a pot of water kept topped up.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, raisin, flour, sugar, egg):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegthe original
- Jalapenofits less well
- Turmericfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against beef, raisin, flour, sugar, 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.
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