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Dessert

English Plum-pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, currants, suet, flour, sugar, eggs, brandy, and candied orange peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

English Plum-pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Clean the currants and stone the raisins.

  2. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.

  3. Beat the eggs and brandy together.

  4. Pour the beaten eggs and brandy over the dry mixture and mix thoroughly.

Steam and serve

  1. Pack the mixture into greased molds or kettles and cover.

  2. Place the molds or kettles in a pot of boiling water and boil for 6 hours without interruption.

  3. On the day of serving, boil again for 6 hours.

  4. When serving, pour brandy over the pudding, set it on fire, and serve while blazing.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 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 help give the cooked pudding its set structure.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the liquids and give the pudding its body.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a deeper, molasses-like flavor.
Flour
Adds structure, helping the pudding hold together when cooked.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor, and is later set alight for serving.

The step that matters

Boiling without interruption. The pudding must stay at a steady boil for the full 6 hours. Letting the water drop lowers the heat, so the pudding cooks unevenly and can turn out dense or soggy.

Swap the currant

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

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

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