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Dessert

Aunt Sarah’s Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with crackers, suet, milk, raisins, currants, citron, spices, wine, brandy, oranges, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Aunt Sarah’s Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. In a basin, combine the pounded crackers and shredded suet.

  2. Pour the scalding milk over the mixture and mix well.

  3. Add the seeded raisins, currants, and dredged flour, followed by the citron, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, flour, brown sugar, salt, wine, brandy, and grated oranges.

  4. The next day, add the eggs and mix thoroughly.

Boil and serve

  1. Fill a square cloth with the mixture, leaving little room, and tie it securely.

  2. Place a plate in the pot while boiling.

  3. Boil the pudding in water for 7 hours.

  4. Turn it out onto a round dish, perforate with a fork, and decorate with citron and almonds.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and add structure as the pudding sets during boiling.
Suet
Adds fat and richness, keeping the pudding moist and tender.
Pounded crackers
Provide the crumb base that soaks up the milk and gives body to the pudding.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a molasses depth of flavor.
Flour
Helps bind the mixture and gives the pudding its body.

The step that matters

Tying the cloth and boiling. The cloth must be filled loosely and tied securely so the pudding can swell without bursting or leaking into the water. Keeping the water at a steady boil for the full 7 hours ensures the pudding cooks through and sets evenly.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, raisin, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, sugar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, raisin, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, sugar. 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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