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Dessert

Plum Pudding

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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

Prepare the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the raisins, currants, candied peels, suet, flour, sugar, lemon zest, mixed spice, and salt.

  2. In another bowl, whisk together the eggs and milk, then add to the dry ingredients.

  3. Stir in the brandy until well mixed.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold and cover with a cloth.

  2. Boil in a pot of water for 5 to 6 hours.

  3. Serve with brandy sauce.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Raisin + orangetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help set it into a firm, sliceable pudding.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich during long steaming.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps give the pudding its dark color.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor and helps preserve the pudding.

The step that matters

Boil in a pot of water for 5 to 6 hours. The pudding must steam gently and stay submerged at a steady simmer for the full time. If the water boils dry or drops too low, the pudding cooks unevenly and can turn dense or soggy in places.

Swap the currant

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

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

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