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Dessert

English Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, flour, molasses, raisins or currants, sour milk, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

English Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub the suet into the flour.

  2. Mix in the molasses, raisins or currants, sour milk, and baking soda.

  3. Butter a two-quart pudding pot or pail.

Steam and serve

  1. Fill the pot with the mixture.

  2. Set the pot into hot water and boil constantly for three 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. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Raisin + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

  5. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the main structure of the pudding as it cooks.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding rich and moist.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and a deep, dark flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to lift and lighten the pudding.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture.
Raisins or english currants
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Keep the water boiling constantly. The pudding is cooked by steam and hot water over a long period. If the water drops below a steady boil, the pudding cooks unevenly and can turn heavy or doughy. Topping up with hot water helps maintain the heat.

“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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