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Dessert

English Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with eggs, suet, dried fruit, flour, spices, and brandy, boiled for nine hours.

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

Mix the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine eggs, sugar, suet, raisins, currants, citron, flour, mixed spice, and brandy.

  2. Add enough milk to achieve a stiff batter.

Boil the pudding

  1. Prepare a strong, well-floured cloth and tie it, leaving room for the pudding to swell.

  2. Place the pudding in boiling water and boil for 9 hours, keeping it well covered.

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

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

  4. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 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 batter and add structure as the pudding sets.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich during long boiling.
Flour
Provides the starch that gives the pudding its body and firm texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the pudding brown and develop flavour.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour depth to the batter.

The step that matters

Leave room for the pudding to swell in the cloth. The flour and dried fruit absorb liquid and expand as the pudding cooks. A cloth tied too tightly can restrict this swelling and split or squeeze the pudding, so the cloth must be tied loosely enough for it to expand.

Swap the currant

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

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

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