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Dessert

English Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, currants, suet, flour, eggs, brandy, sweet wine, sugar, spices, and optional sweet milk.

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 ↓

English Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the raisins, currants, suet, flour, eggs, brandy, sweet wine, sugar, and spices.

  2. Mix well until all ingredients are combined. If the mixture is too dry, add a little sweet milk.

Cook the pudding

  1. Place the mixture in a well-floured cloth that has been dipped in hot water and tie it tightly.

  2. Boil the pudding in a large pot of water for 4 hours, or use a pudding mold.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Brandy + winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

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

  4. Raisin + curranttop 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 give the pudding structure as it cooks.
All-purpose flour
Adds body and helps hold the dense fruit and suet together.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich during long cooking.
Raisins
Provide chewy texture and concentrated sweetness.
Currants
Add tart fruitiness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor, and helps preserve the pudding.

The step that matters

Tying the cloth. The cloth must be well floured and dipped in hot water so the pudding does not stick to it, and it must be tied tightly so the pudding keeps its shape and no water seeps in during the long boil.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Currantthe original

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

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