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Dessert

A Rich Plum Pudding

A rich plum pudding made with eggs, flour, suet, plums, currants, candied peel, almonds, brandy, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,833 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

A Rich Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the beaten eggs, flour, salt, nutmeg, ginger or spices, and chopped suet or marrow.

  2. Add the plums, currants, candied peel, and almonds, mixing thoroughly.

  3. Stir in the brandy and powdered sugar until the mixture reaches a thick batter consistency. Add a little water if needed.

Cook and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a buttered basin or mold, or wrap in a cloth.

  2. Boil for four hours or more.

  3. Serve with sifted sugar on top, garnished with sliced lemon, and with wine or lemon sauce on the side.

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. Ginger + orangetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,833 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Plum + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together309 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as the pudding sets.
Fine flour
Forms the body of the pudding, giving it structure as it cooks.
Beef suet or marrow
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender during long cooking.
Plums
Add moisture, fruit flavor and sweetness throughout the pudding.
Currants
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy fruit texture.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor that carries through the long cooking.

The step that matters

Boil for four hours or more. Long, steady boiling cooks the flour and eggs fully through and gelatinizes the starch, so the pudding sets firm rather than gummy. Keep the water boiling gently and topped up so the pudding cooks evenly from the outside in.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, nutmeg, ginger, beef, plum, 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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