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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, currants, raisins, eggs, flour, milk, nutmeg, ginger, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

  2. Add half the milk to the eggs and mix well.

  3. Gradually stir in the flour.

  4. Add the suet, spices, and fruit.

  5. Mix in enough milk to achieve a thick batter.

Cook

  1. Boil for four hours in a cloth.

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 + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Currant + raisintop 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 batter and add richness and structure as they set during boiling.
Flour
Provides the body that holds the pudding together and gives it structure.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich in texture.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and loosens the mixture into a thick batter.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture through the pudding.
Currants
Add sweetness and chewy texture through the pudding.

The step that matters

Mix in enough milk to achieve a thick batter. Too much milk makes the batter loose, so the pudding may not hold its shape or set firmly. Too little leaves dry, stiff pockets of flour. Judging the thickness by eye gives the pudding its even, sliceable texture.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, egg, nutmeg, ginger, flour, milk):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, egg, nutmeg, ginger, flour, 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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