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Dessert

Phelan Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with sugar, eggs, suet, dried fruit, spices, flour, and rum or brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Phelan Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine sugar, eggs, beef suet, raisins, currants, citron, lemon and orange peel.

  2. Add allspice, cloves, ginger, cinnamon, nutmegs, and salt; mix well.

  3. Gradually stir in flour and enough rum or brandy to form a thick batter.

Boil and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a pudding cloth or mold.

  2. Boil in a large pot of water for 4 to 6 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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Orange + allspicetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together727 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Lemon + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,083 recipes

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

  4. Currant + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,359 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  5. Raisin + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,475 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the starch and structure that hold the thick batter together as it cooks.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firmly during long cooking.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the spices and dried fruit.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Boiling time. Boiling for the full 4 to 6 hours at a steady simmer cooks the dense batter through. Too short a boil leaves it heavy and undercooked in the center, and the water must stay topped up so the pudding stays submerged.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, beef, raisin, lemon, orange, allspice):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Cranberryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, beef, raisin, lemon, orange, allspice. 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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