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Dessert

English Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, dried fruit, spices, and eggs, served with a sour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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

Prepare the mixture

  1. Boil a kettle of water.

  2. In a large bowl, mix flour and salt.

  3. Add chopped suet and mix well, ensuring no lumps remain.

  4. Stir in bread crumbs, currants, raisins, and candied peel.

  5. Grate the lemon zest and nutmeg into the mixture.

  6. Add chopped almonds.

  7. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs with the milk.

  8. Mix the egg mixture into the dry ingredients.

Cook and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture into a floured pudding cloth or a buttered mold and tie tightly.

  2. Place the pudding in the boiling water and cook for 5 hours.

  3. Serve with a sour 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 + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

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

  4. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Raisin + orangetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 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

Beef suet
Adds fat that melts during cooking, keeping the pudding moist and rich.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set into a firm, sliceable pudding.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and add body, giving the pudding a lighter, softer crumb.
All-purpose flour
Provides structure, helping the pudding hold its shape while it steams.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and contributes to the dark color and flavor.
Currants
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Tie the pudding tightly and keep it submerged in boiling water. A loose cloth or mold lets water seep in and makes the pudding soggy, while a steady boil keeps the steam heat even so the pudding cooks through over the long cooking time.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, raisin, lemon, orange, bread, flour, sugar. 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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