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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed dessert made with bread crumbs, flour, dried fruit, suet, molasses, eggs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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

Mix the batter

  1. Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.

  2. Beat the egg yolks and whites separately, then combine them with ½ cup molasses.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in a little warm water and add it to the molasses and eggs.

  4. Mix the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients until well combined.

Steam

  1. Steam the mixture for 3 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

  5. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 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 batter and, once beaten, add lift and help set the pudding's structure.
Flour
Forms the structure, as its starch sets during cooking to give the pudding body.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and add bulk, giving the pudding a soft, moist crumb.
Suet
Adds fat that melts during cooking, keeping the pudding rich and tender.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that helps the pudding rise.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and contributes to the pudding's dark, rich flavour.

The step that matters

Steaming the mixture for 3 hours. Gentle, steady steam cooks the pudding evenly without drying it out. If the water boils dry or the pan is not kept covered, the outside can overcook while the centre stays underdone and dry.

Swap the currant

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

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

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