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Dessert

Plum Pudding Mould

A custard-like dessert made with plum pudding slices, milk, almonds, sugar, lemon rind, and eggs, baked in a mould.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Plum and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 211 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Plum Pudding Mould

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Line a mould or basin with thin slices of plum pudding.

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, gently boil the milk with salt and bruised almonds for 5 minutes.

  2. Add sugar and the thin rind of lemon, then strain the mixture.

  3. Mix the strained milk with the well-beaten eggs.

Cook

  1. Pour the mixture into the mould while it is still warm.

  2. Boil gently for 1 hour.

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. Plum + almondtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together211 recipes

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

  2. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Plum + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together406 recipes

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

  4. Plum + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together623 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, binding the milk into a firm, sliceable mass.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, giving a soft, creamy texture once set.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the flavour of the eggs and milk.
Plum pudding
Lines the mould, adding fruit and spice flavour and a sturdy outer layer.

The step that matters

Boil gently for 1 hour. Eggs set into a custard when heated, but a hard boil can cause the custard to curdle and become porous. Gentle heat keeps it smooth and evenly set.

Swap the plum

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, almond, sugar, lemon, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, almond, sugar, lemon, egg. 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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