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Dessert

Pound Plum Pudding

A boiled plum pudding made with raisins, currants, suet, flour, sugar, eggs, brandy, sherry, nutmeg, and lemon zest.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Pound Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs well in a large bowl.

  2. Add the dry ingredients one by one.

  3. Pour in the brandy and sherry.

  4. Mix everything together with your hands.

Cook

  1. Place the mixture into a cloth, tie it firmly, and boil for six 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. Brandy + sherrytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  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
Beaten eggs bind the mixture and give the pudding its structure as they set.
Suet
Fat that melts during boiling, adding richness and a moist, tender crumb.
Flour
Provides starch that sets with the eggs to give the pudding body.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the dried fruit taste rich.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor while softening and moistening the dried fruit.

The step that matters

Tie the cloth firmly before boiling. A loose cloth lets water seep into the pudding, making it soggy and waterlogged. Firm tying keeps the mixture compact so it cooks evenly in the steam and boiling water.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Apricotfits about as well
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, flour, sugar, egg, brandy, sherry, 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.

More plum pudding recipes

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

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