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Dessert

Small and Very Light Plum Pudding

A small, light pudding made from stale bread crumbs, suet, plums, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Small and Very Light Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Soak the bread crumbs in boiling milk.

  2. Mix in the suet and chopped plums.

Cook

  1. Adjust the liquid as needed to moisten the pudding.

  2. Boil for 25 minutes.

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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Milk + plumtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together406 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Bread + plumtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread crumbs
Absorb the hot milk and swell, giving the pudding its body and structure.
Milk
Softens the dry crumbs and adds moisture so they hold together.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender as it cooks.
Plums
Add fruity sweetness and moisture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Adjust the liquid as needed to moisten the pudding. Dry crumbs and suet need enough liquid to swell and bind. Too little leaves the pudding crumbly, and too much makes it heavy and dense.

Swap the plum

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Plumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, 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.

More plum pudding recipes

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