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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed dessert made with suet, sugar, milk, fruit, spices, flour, and molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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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 ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix together the currants, raisins, suet, molasses, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

  2. Add the juice and rind of the orange.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in hot water and add it to the milk.

  4. Combine the milk mixture with the fruit mixture and gradually add the flour.

Steam and serve

  1. Divide the batter into five one-pound baking powder cans, cover tightly, and steam for four hours.

  2. To serve, steam until very hot.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Cinnamon + orangetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses and hot water to lighten the dense batter.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it steams.
Suet
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the pudding tender during steaming.
Molasses
Adds dark color, deep sweetness, and moisture to the pudding.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in hot water. Baking soda must be fully dissolved before it meets the acidic molasses mixture so it reacts evenly. Uneven distribution can leave pockets that are bitter or unevenly risen.

Swap the currant

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

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

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