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Dessert

Eggless Plum-pudding

An eggless plum pudding made with grated bread, suet, flour, currants, sugar, brandy, and milk, boiled for four hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Eggless Plum-pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine grated bread, chopped suet, flour, currants, and sugar.

  2. Add brandy and enough milk to form a stiff batter.

Boil

  1. Place the mixture in a cloth and tie it securely.

  2. Boil in water for four 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. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Brandy + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,738 recipes

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

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

Grated bread
Provides the body of the pudding and soaks up the liquid to hold a firm shape.
Chopped suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Flour
Helps bind the mixture so it holds together rather than falling apart.
Currants
Add sweetness and fruity flavour throughout the pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps flavour the pudding.
Brandy
Adds aroma and a warm, spirited flavour to the pudding.

The step that matters

Tie the cloth securely. If the cloth is loose, water can seep into the pudding during the long boil, making it soggy and diluting its flavour. A snug, sealed cloth keeps the mixture dense and moist.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, flour, sugar, brandy, 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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