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Dessert

Plum-pudding

A steamed pudding made with eggs, flour, spices, suet, bread crumbs, dried fruit, molasses, and raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Plum-pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the currants.

  2. Soak the bread crumbs in the milk.

  3. Strain the molasses.

  4. Sift together the flour and baking powder.

Mix the batter

  1. Add the egg yolks and all other ingredients.

  2. Add the sifted flour and baking powder to the mixture.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg whites last.

Steam and finish

  1. Fill a well-greased pudding mold or tin kettle with a cover no more than two-thirds full.

  2. Fit the cover tightly.

  3. Boil in a large pot of boiling water for 3 hours and 30 minutes.

  4. Place a sprig of holly on top.

  5. Pour a little brandy over the pudding.

  6. Ignite the brandy.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks bind the batter, and whites beaten and folded in add air for a lighter texture.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender.
Bread crumbs
Soak up the milk and add body and moisture to the batter.
Dark molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking to help the pudding rise.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites last. Beaten whites hold air bubbles that give lift. Folding them in gently at the end, rather than stirring, keeps that air from collapsing and keeps the batter light.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, flour, cinnamon, milk, bread, molasses, raisin):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Clovefits about as well
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, cinnamon, milk, bread, molasses, raisin. 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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