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Dessert

English Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, currants, suet, stale bread crumbs, eggs, brown sugar, brandy, flour, candied orange peel, and lemon rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.

  2. Beat the eggs and add them to the brandy.

  3. Pour the egg mixture over the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly.

Pack and boil

  1. Pack the mixture into a pudding mold and seal tightly with a strip of buttered muslin.

  2. Boil for six hours at the time of making.

  3. Boil for another six hours when ready to serve.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread crumbs
Absorb the liquid and give the pudding its body.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help set it as it cooks.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a deep, molasses-like flavor.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich.
Flour
Adds structure so the pudding holds its shape.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor, and helps preserve the pudding.

The step that matters

Sealing the mold. A tight seal keeps steam inside during the long boil. If steam escapes, water can enter the mold and make the pudding soggy, and the boiling pot may need topping up.

Swap the currant

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

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

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

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