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Dessert

Plum Pudding

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 pudding

  1. Mix all ingredients well with the flour.

  2. Boil the mixture in a cloth in a pot of boiling water for 7 hours.

Serve

  1. Before serving, sprinkle grated loaf sugar over the pudding.

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 + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Nutmeg + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef suet
Adds richness and fat, keeping the pudding moist and tender as it cooks.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it steams.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help set it firm during boiling.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, along with a deeper flavor.
Currants
Add concentrated fruit flavor and soft chewiness to the pudding.

The step that matters

Boiling for 7 hours. The pudding must cook long and at a steady boil so the eggs and flour set fully and the fat renders evenly. Too little heat or time leaves it dense and wet in the middle.

Swap the currant

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

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

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