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Dessert

Cup Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, currants, suet, spices, eggs, buttermilk, flour, bread crumbs, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Cup Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the flour, raisins, currants, bread crumbs, suet, and sugar.

  2. Add the cinnamon, cloves, grated lemon peel, and beaten eggs.

  3. Stir in enough buttermilk to make a stiff batter and add the baking soda.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam for 2 to 3 hours.

  3. Serve warm 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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 add structure as they set during steaming.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to release gas, helping the pudding rise and lighten.
Buttermilk
Moistens the batter and its acidity reacts with the baking soda.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the pudding once set.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps browning and a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Stiff batter with baking soda. The batter should be stiff, not runny, so it holds its shape in the mold. Baking soda is added at this point so it reacts with the buttermilk's acid and gives lift before steaming sets the pudding.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, cinnamon, clove, lemon, egg, buttermilk, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, cinnamon, clove, lemon, egg, buttermilk, flour. 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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