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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, lemon and citron peel, suet, brown sugar, bread crumbs, flour, 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

  1. Chop the raisins and cut the peels into thin slices, sprinkling them with flour.

  2. Remove the membrane from the suet and chop it finely.

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

  4. Add the brown sugar to the sifted mixture.

Mix and steam

  1. Stir in the bread crumbs, suet, and chopped fruit. Mix well, then add the grape juice and beaten eggs.

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

  3. Steam for 4 hours; if using 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 as they set during steaming.
Suet
Adds richness and moistness by melting into the batter during steaming.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding a soft, body-filled texture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a molasses-like depth of flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with acidic ingredients to lighten the texture and aid rising.
Raisins
Provide sweetness, chewy texture and concentrated fruit flavor.

The step that matters

Steam for the full time in a covered, well-greased mold. Steaming gently cooks the batter through without drying it. Cooking too briefly leaves the centre wet and dense, so the stated time for your mold size matters.

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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