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Dessert

Plum Pudding with Chocolate

A chilled gelatin-based dessert containing raisins, nuts, figs, and chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 324 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Plum Pudding with Chocolate

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gelatin

  1. Soak the gelatin in cold water for 10 minutes.

  2. In a double boiler, heat the milk until scalding hot.

  3. Stir the soaked gelatin into the hot milk until fully dissolved.

Make the pudding

  1. Sift together the sugar and cocoa, then add to the milk mixture.

  2. Stir in the raisins, chopped nuts, and chopped figs.

  3. Once cool, whip the heavy cream until stiff and fold it into the mixture.

  4. Pour the mixture into a pudding mold and refrigerate until hardened, preferably overnight.

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. Fig + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together324 recipes

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

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Gelatin + creamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Raisin + figtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

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

  5. Nuts + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together638 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatin
Sets the milk mixture into a firm, sliceable pudding as it cools.
Heavy cream
Adds fat and a light, airy texture when whipped and folded in.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the gelatin and cocoa are dissolved into.
Cocoa powder
Gives the pudding its chocolate flavor and color.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and balances the bitterness of the cocoa.

The step that matters

Dissolving the gelatin in the hot milk. Gelatin must be fully dissolved before the mixture cools, or it will set unevenly and leave grainy or rubbery pockets. Stirring until no granules remain ensures a smooth, uniformly set pudding.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (gelatin, nuts, milk, fig, cream, cocoa powder, vanilla):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Bananafits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against gelatin, nuts, milk, fig, cream, cocoa powder, vanilla. 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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