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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, lemon and citron peel, suet, brown sugar, bread crumbs, spices, eggs, and grape juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit and suet

  1. Chop the raisins.

  2. Cut the lemon and citron peels into thin slices.

  3. Sprinkle the sliced peels with flour.

  4. Remove the membrane from the suet.

  5. Chop the suet finely.

Make the batter

  1. Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, and spices.

  2. Add the sifted brown sugar to the mixture.

  3. Incorporate the bread crumbs, suet, and fruit into the mixture.

  4. Mix well.

  5. Add the grape juice and well-beaten eggs.

Steam

  1. Pour the mixture into three well-greased molds and cover them.

  2. Steam for 4 hours; if cooking in one large mold, steam for 6 hours.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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 they set during steaming.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding body and a tender texture.
Raisins
Provide sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a molasses flavor, with moisture that helps the pudding stay soft.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter's acidity to help it rise and lighten.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture into well-greased molds and cover them. Greasing keeps the dense, sticky batter from sticking when unmolded. Covering traps steam so the pudding cooks through evenly and stays moist instead of drying out.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Quincefits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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

More plum pudding recipes

English 165Christmas 156Sauce 71Eggless 34Baked 33Vegetable 19 See all 649 →

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