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Dessert

A Rich Plum Pudding

A moist pudding made with raisins, currants, suet, almonds, citron, candied peel, brandy, eggs, and flour, boiled and served with butter.

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

A Rich Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the raisins, currants, chopped suet, pounded almonds, citron, candied orange peel, candied lemon peel, salt, nutmeg, and flour.

  2. Add the brandy and beaten eggs, mixing well.

  3. Stir in enough cream or milk to achieve a good thickness.

Cook and serve

  1. Tie the mixture in a cloth and boil for 5 hours.

  2. Serve with melted butter over the pudding, or pour the mixture into a mold and bake.

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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 they set during cooking.
Flour
Provides the body that holds the dense pudding together.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture.
Currants
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour that carries through the pudding.

The step that matters

Tie the mixture in a cloth and boil for 5 hours. The cloth must be tied loosely enough for the pudding to swell, and the water must stay at a steady boil. Too little room or a weak boil can make the pudding dense or uneven.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, beef, almond, orange, lemon, nutmeg, flour):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Cranberryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, beef, almond, orange, lemon, nutmeg, flour. 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

English 165Christmas 156Sauce 71Eggless 34Baked 33Vegetable 19 See all 649 →

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