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Dessert

Rich Plum Pudding

A rich plum pudding made with eggs, cream, flour, suet, currants, raisins, candied citrus, nutmeg, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 ↓

Rich Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Beat the eggs, yolks and whites separately.

  2. Strain the beaten eggs.

  3. Mix the eggs with the thick cream.

  4. Stir in the flour and bread crumbs until well combined.

  5. Add the finely chopped suet, currants, raisins, powdered sugar, candied lemon, citron, and grated nutmeg.

  6. Mix everything thoroughly with the brandy or wine.

Boil

  1. Pour the mixture into a damp, floured cloth.

  2. Boil in water for six to seven hours.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

  4. Bread + beeftop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

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

  5. Raisin + sugartop 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
Set the pudding and bind the mixture together while adding richness.
Thick cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the batter soft and smooth.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding a light, tender body.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich during long cooking.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Boiling in the cloth. The pudding needs a long, steady boil to cook through and set. The cloth must be damp and floured so it does not stick, and the water must keep boiling for the full six to seven hours.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, flour, bread, beef, raisin, 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.

More plum pudding recipes

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