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Dessert

Blight House Plum Pudding

A plum pudding made with grated bread, sugar, dried fruit, citron, eggs, lemon zest, nutmeg, brandy, wine, and suet or butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Blight House Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grease the inside of a pudding cloth well.

  2. Tie the pudding tightly, leaving no room to swell.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil for five hours.

  2. Just before serving, pour a glass of brandy over the pudding and set it on fire.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

  5. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

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

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 help set the pudding's structure as it cooks.
Grated bread
Provides body and absorbs liquid, giving the pudding its crumb.
Suet or butter
Adds fat for richness and a moist, tender texture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and deepens the flavour.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Currants
Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Tie the pudding tightly, leaving no room to swell. The pudding expands as it heats and rises. A tight tie keeps water out during boiling and holds the shape. A loose cloth lets water soak in, making the pudding heavy and soggy.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, sugar, raisin, egg, lemon, nutmeg, brandy):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, raisin, egg, lemon, nutmeg, 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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