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Christmas Pudding

A rich, fruit-filled steamed pudding made with raisins, currants, suet, flour, sugar, eggs, spices, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Christmas Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit and suet

  1. Stone the raisins and chop them finely.

  2. Wash the currants, dry them, and chop them.

  3. Pick over the suet to remove skin and hard bits, then chop it very finely.

Mix the batter

  1. Beat the eggs thoroughly.

  2. Grate the nutmegs.

  3. Mix the chopped candied peel of citron with the flour, then add the baking powder.

  4. Combine all ingredients thoroughly.

Boil and serve

  1. Place the mixture into a pudding cloth or bag that has been dipped in hot water, wrung out, and floured inside.

  2. Boil water.

  3. Place the pudding over the boiling water, ensuring it boils steadily for five hours.

  4. Serve warm with 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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Currant + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,359 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  5. Raisin + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,475 recipes

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

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 help give the pudding its set structure as it cooks.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the dense pudding together.
Bread crumbs
Add body and absorb moisture, giving a soft, tender crumb.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking to lighten the pudding's texture.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy moisture to the pudding.

The step that matters

Keeping the water boiling steadily for five hours. Steady steaming cooks the pudding evenly and sets its structure. If the water drops below a boil for long, the pudding cooks unevenly and can turn heavy or soggy.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, bread, flour, sugar, egg, allspice, clove):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, bread, flour, sugar, egg, allspice, clove. 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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