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Dessert

Mother Snow's Plum Pudding

A fruit pudding made with bread crumbs, flour, suet, raisins, currants, citron, apples, fruit juice, milk, brown sugar, nutmeg, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Mother Snow's Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine bread crumbs, flour, suet, raisins, currants, citron, and apples.

  2. Add fruit juice, salt, milk, brown sugar, and nutmeg to the mixture.

  3. Fold in the beaten eggs until well combined.

Boil and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture into a floured cloth or mold.

  2. Boil for 3 hours.

  3. Serve with 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Provides the bulk and soft body that holds the pudding together.
Suet
Adds richness and fat that keeps the pudding moist as it cooks.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm while cooking.
Flour
Adds structure so the pudding holds its shape when boiled.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a deeper, molasses-like flavor.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness.

The step that matters

Boil for 3 hours. The pudding must cook long and steadily so the eggs and starches set through the center. Too little time leaves it wet and loose, while the cloth or mold must be sealed well so water cannot get in and make it soggy.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, flour, raisin, apple, milk, sugar, 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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