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Christmas Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, currants, sultanas, mixed peel, suet, flour, bread crumbs, nutmeg, sugar, lemon peel, ratafia essence, milk, and eggs.

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 ↓

Christmas Pudding

six portions
Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Mix and portion

  1. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and mix well until fully combined.

  2. Divide the mixture into six portions.

  3. Place each portion in a pudding cloth or mold.

Boil

  1. Boil the puddings for eight to ten hours.

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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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 help set the pudding as it cooks.
Flour
Provides structure so the pudding holds its shape when cooked.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich.
Bread crumbs
Soak up liquid and add body to the mixture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the richness of the fruit and fat.
Milk
Adds moisture that hydrates the flour and crumbs.

The step that matters

Boiling for eight to ten hours. Long, gentle boiling cooks the eggs and flour through so the pudding sets firm and evenly cooked. If the heat drops too low, the centre can stay undercooked and dense; if the cooking liquid boils dry, the pudding can scorch.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, flour, bread, nutmeg, sugar, lemon, milk):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, flour, bread, nutmeg, sugar, lemon, 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.

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