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Dessert

French Plum Pudding

A baked plum dessert made with plums, flour, eggs, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

French Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the plums

  1. Pour boiling water over the plums and simmer for one hour.

  2. Stone and drain the plums.

Make and cook the pudding

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, salt, egg yolks, and cream to make a batter.

  2. Fold in the plums and tie the mixture in a well-floured cloth, leaving room for expansion.

  3. Boil for two hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with plum pudding 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. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Plum + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together777 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  4. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Plum + creamtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together369 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Forms the starchy structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter as the pudding sets.
Heavy cream
Adds fat and moisture, making the batter tender and rich.
French plums
Provide fruit flavour and moisture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Tie the cloth with room for expansion. Flour-thickened batter swells as it heats and starch gelatinises. A cloth tied too tightly can restrict expansion and make the pudding dense or burst the wrapping.

Swap the plum

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Plumthe original

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