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Dessert

English Plum Pudding

A boiled plum pudding made with raisins, currants, mixed peel, bread crumbs, suet, lemon, eggs, sugar, nutmeg, salt, and milk.

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 ↓

English Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the pudding

  1. Mix the raisins, currants, mixed peel, bread crumbs, chopped suet, lemon juice, and lemon rind in a large bowl.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and milk gradually until the mixture is moist enough to stick together but not wet.

Boil and serve

  1. Fill bowls with the mixture, cover tightly with cloths, and boil steadily for 8 hours.

  2. When ready to serve, boil for an additional hour.

  3. Serve with ice cream and rich 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. 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. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 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

Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the pudding its soft, crumbly body.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich during long boiling.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so it holds together when boiled.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and a chewy texture.
Currants
Add fruity flavour and a chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Light brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, with a mild molasses flavour.

The step that matters

Getting the moisture right. Eggs and milk must be added gradually. Too little liquid makes the pudding crumbly, while too much makes it soggy and dense as it steams.

Swap the currant

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

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

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