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Dessert

English Plum-pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, currants, suet, bread crumbs, sugar, spices, eggs, brandy, and candied orange peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 the batter

  1. Clean the currants and stone the raisins.

  2. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.

  3. Beat the eggs and brandy together, then pour over the dry mixture and mix thoroughly.

  4. Pack the mixture into greased molds or kettles and cover them.

Steam and serve

  1. Place the molds in a pot of boiling water and boil for 6 hours without interruption.

  2. On the day of serving, boil the pudding again for 6 hours.

  3. When serving, pour brandy over the pudding, set it on fire, and serve while blazing.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  3. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  4. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 richness and structure as they set during cooking.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Stale bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding body and a tender crumb.
Flour
Adds structure that helps the pudding hold its shape when steamed.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a molasses depth to the pudding.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor, and is later used to flame the pudding for serving.

The step that matters

Boiling without interruption. The pudding needs steady, continuous simmering for the full 6 hours so it cooks through evenly. Letting the water drop or stop boiling can leave the center underdone and the texture uneven.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, bread, sugar, lemon, flour, nutmeg, brandy. 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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