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Dessert

Plum-pudding, Without Eggs

A steamed plum pudding made with suet, bread crumbs, molasses, raisins, currants, spices, baking soda, milk, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Plum-pudding, Without Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, stir together the suet, bread crumbs, molasses, raisins, currants, salt, cloves, cinnamon, allspice, baking soda, and milk.

  2. Add flour gradually until you achieve a stiff batter.

Steam and serve

  1. Grease a pudding mold or a three-quart pail and pour in the batter.

  2. Cover the mold or pail tightly.

  3. Place the covered pail into a larger kettle filled halfway with boiling water.

  4. Steam for at least 4 hours, adding boiling water as needed.

  5. Serve with wine sauce or sweet 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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich during long steaming.
Bread crumbs
Provides body and absorbs the liquid to give the batter structure.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and moisture to the pudding.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acid to lighten the batter and help it rise.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Steaming the covered pail. The pudding must steam gently for a long time in simmering water. If the mold is not sealed tightly or the water is allowed to boil dry, steam escapes and the pudding dries out or turns dense. Keeping the water topped up maintains steady heat for even cooking.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, bread, molasses, raisin, clove, cinnamon, allspice):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, molasses, raisin, clove, cinnamon, 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.

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