Name: English Plum Pudding
Ingredients: 1 pound raisins, seeded; 1 pound currants; 1 pound suet, chopped fine; 1 pound sugar; 1½ ounces cinnamon; 1 nutmeg or 1 teaspoon mace; 1 pint milk; 1 pint flour

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

English Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Mix the batter

In a large bowl, combine the raisins, currants, suet, sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg or mace.
Stir in the milk and flour until well combined.
Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

Steam the pudding

Cover the mold with a cloth and steam for about 6 hours.

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.

Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,390 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,377 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour: Provides the structure that sets the pudding as it cooks.
Suet: Melts during steaming, adding richness and a tender texture.
Milk: Hydrates the flour and binds the fruit and dry ingredients into a batter.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and balances the spices and dried fruit.
Raisins: Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness.
Cinnamon: Adds warm aroma and spice flavor.

Swap the currant

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

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Blueberryfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, milk, flour. 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.