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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A baked dessert made with bread crumbs, butter, sugar, milk, raisins, wine, eggs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the bread crumbs, butter, sugar, and milk.

  2. Stir in the raisins, wine, and eggs until well combined.

  3. Add the salt, cloves, cinnamon, allspice, mace, and nutmeg, mixing thoroughly.

  4. Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish.

Bake

  1. Bake for 1.5 hours or until set.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Sugar + raisintop 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and set into a firm, sliceable custard-like structure when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender crumb by coating flour-free starch and carrying flavor.
Bread crumbs
Provide the body of the pudding and absorb the liquid so the mixture holds together.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the pudding brown lightly at the edges.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of sweetness and moisture throughout the pudding.
Milk
Adds moisture and softens the bread crumbs into a spoonable batter.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs set as they heat, so underbaking leaves the centre runny while overbaking makes it dry and rubbery. Check for a firm centre rather than relying only on the timed 1.5 hours.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Gingerfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, sugar, milk, raisin, wine, 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.

More plum pudding recipes

English 165Christmas 156Sauce 71Eggless 34Baked 33Vegetable 19 See all 649 →

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