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Dessert

English Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with bread crumbs, dried fruit, suet, and spices, served hot with brandy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,781 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

English Plum Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scald the bread crumbs with milk.

  2. Combine the bread crumbs, raisins, currants, sugar, suet, candied lemon peel, nutmeg, salt, chopped lemons, eggs, chopped almonds, and brandy in a large bowl.

  3. Add enough flour to create a stiff batter.

Cook and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a pudding cloth or mold.

  2. Boil for 4 hours.

  3. Serve hot with brandy sauce.

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

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

  2. Nutmeg + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  5. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding its body and soft crumb.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together and help it set firm when cooked.
Raisins
Provide sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the tartness of the lemons.
Flour
Thickens the batter so it holds its shape while boiling.

The step that matters

Add enough flour to create a stiff batter. A batter that is too wet will turn heavy and may fall apart when boiled. Flour thickens the mixture so it holds together and sets into a firm, sliceable pudding.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, raisin, sugar, lemon, nutmeg, egg, almond):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, raisin, sugar, lemon, nutmeg, egg, almond. 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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