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Dessert

Egoless Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made from bread crumbs, flour, suet, raisins, molasses, milk, baking soda, salt, cloves, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Egoless Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl.

  2. Pour the mixture into a 2‑gallon covered pail.

Steam

  1. Set the pail in a kettle of boiling water.

  2. Boil for 2½ 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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and add a soft, tender crumb to the pudding.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a dark color with a deep flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Sweet milk
Hydrates the dry ingredients so they form a cohesive batter.

The step that matters

Keep the pail covered and the water boiling. A tightly covered pail traps steam so the pudding cooks gently and stays moist. If the water level drops or the lid lifts, the pudding can dry out or cook unevenly.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Allspicefits about as well

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