Skip to main content
Dessert

Plum Pudding, No. 2

A steamed pudding made with milk, cracker crumbs, butter, raisins, currants, citron, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Plum Pudding, No. 2

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the milk and cracker crumbs.

  2. Melt the butter and mix it into the bowl.

  3. Add the raisins, currants, and citron.

  4. Beat the eggs and fold them into the mixture.

Steam

  1. Pour the mixture into a pudding mold and steam for several 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

  4. Milk + curranttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Milk
Provides liquid that softens the cracker crumbs into a moist, spoonable batter.
Cracker crumbs
Form the bulk of the pudding and absorb the liquid to give it body.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, smooth texture.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set during steaming to hold the pudding together.
Raisins
Add sweetness and a chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Currants
Add sweetness and a chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Steaming for several hours. The pudding needs a steady, gentle steam for the whole time. If the water boils dry or the heat swings, the eggs and crumbs set unevenly and the pudding can turn out watery or dense.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, raisin, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, raisin, egg. 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.

You might also like

Red Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipesCurrant Ice CreamCurrant Ice Cream32 recipesCurrant SherbetCurrant Sherbet9 recipesCurrant and Raspberry IceCurrant and Raspberry Ice7 recipes