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Dessert

To Make Rich Plum Pudding

A boiled plum pudding made with bread crumbs, currants, raisins, suet, eggs, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon 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 ↓

To Make Rich Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the bread crumbs, currants, raisins, mixed peel, nutmeg, cinnamon, suet, and brown sugar.

  2. Add the eggs and brandy, and mix well.

Steam and serve

  1. Butter a mold or basin and dredge it with flour.

  2. Pour the mixture into the prepared mold.

  3. Boil for 6 hours.

  4. After boiling, untie the cloth and let it stand for 10 minutes.

  5. Carefully turn it out onto a dish and shake powdered sugar over the top.

  6. Serve with brandy sauce in a boat.

  7. Optionally, make a hole in the top, fill it with brandy, and light it just before serving.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Eggs
Bind the mixture and add structure as the pudding sets.
Bread crumbs
Provide the body of the pudding, absorbing moisture and giving a soft texture.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a deeper, molasses-like flavor.
Currants
Add fruit sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor, and when lit, a brief flame over the top.

The step that matters

Boil for 6 hours. The pudding must cook long and at a steady simmer so the eggs set and the suet melts evenly, giving a moist, cohesive texture rather than a soggy or crumbly one.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, raisin, nutmeg, cinnamon, sugar, egg, brandy):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, raisin, nutmeg, cinnamon, sugar, egg, brandy. 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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