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Dessert

French Plum Pudding

A baked pudding made with flour, breadcrumbs, currants, raisins, apples, citron, suet, sugar, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 ↓

French Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. In a large bowl, combine the flour, bread crumbs, currants, raisins, chopped apples, citron, suet, and sugar.

  2. Brown half of the sugar in a pan until caramelized, then mix it into the pudding mixture.

  3. Add the brandy and stir until well combined.

Boil and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture into a mold and boil for 3½ hours.

  2. Serve with wine 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Apple + brandytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,291 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Currant + appletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding, and browning half of it adds caramel flavor.
Bread crumbs
Soak up liquid and give the pudding a soft, tender body.
Flour
Provides structure so the pudding holds its shape in the mold.
Apples
Add moisture and a fruity tartness that balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Browning half of the sugar. Sugar taken past caramelization turns bitter and dark, while under-browned sugar tastes flat. Watching the color closely gives deep caramel flavor without bitterness.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, bread, raisin, apple, sugar, brandy):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, bread, raisin, apple, sugar, brandy. 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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