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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A boiled plum pudding made with currants, raisins, suet, flour, candied peel, citron, sugar, eggs, brandy, and spices.

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 large bowl, combine currants, raisins, shredded suet, flour (or bread crumbs), candied peels, citron, and moist sugar, mixing well as you add each ingredient.

  2. Stir in the beaten eggs and brandy.

  3. Beat the mixture for 30 minutes.

  4. Let it stand for a while.

  5. Season with ginger, nutmeg, and cloves to taste.

Steam and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture into a basin and boil in plenty of water for 6 to 7 hours.

  2. Serve with sifted sugar or whipped egg whites.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  5. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 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 as they set during cooking.
Suet
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the pudding tender as it cooks.
Flour or bread crumbs
Provides body so the mixture holds together rather than becoming loose.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and a soft, moist texture.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture through the pudding.

The step that matters

Boiling for 6 to 7 hours. The pudding must stay submerged in steadily boiling water for the whole time, because the long gentle steam cooks the eggs and binds the fruit and suet into a set, evenly cooked pudding. Letting the water drop too low can leave it dense or uneven.

Swap the currant

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

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

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